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Embry-Riddle President George Ebbs Wins Air Force Association Award

Dr. George Ebbs Daytona Beach, Fla., July 1, 2005 -- Dr. George H. Ebbs Jr., president of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, will receive the 2005 Gen. Lewis H. Brereton Award from the Florida state organization of the Air Force Association on July 23 at the group’s convention in Cocoa Beach.

The Brereton award is presented annually to a Florida civilian who has made significant contributions to the aerospace defense of the United States. Dr. Ebbs, a patron of the AFA and a recent presidential advisor to the group’s Aerospace Education Foundation, was nominated by the Brig. Gen. James R. McCarthy Chapter #397 of Volusia and Flagler counties.

“Since his arrival at Embry-Riddle in 1998, Dr. Ebbs has strengthened the university’s long-standing commitment to the aerospace industry and our nation’s military,” said Marguerite Cummock, chapter president. “We’re very pleased with the new degree programs in Applied Meteorology and Safety Science and we’re excited about the proposed Embry-Riddle Research and Technology Park.”

Air Force ROTC now offers scholarships in research meteorology at Embry-Riddle, making the Applied Meteorology programs with their state-of-the-art Weather Centers at the university’s Daytona Beach and Prescott, Ariz., campuses even more attractive to students. The large and growing Air Force ROTC units at Embry-Riddle’s campuses total more than 700 cadets and are second only to the U.S. Air Force Academy as a university-based commissioning source of officers and pilots.

In the last few years, Dr. Ebbs has presided over three major military and Air Force-related contracts worth a total of $57.2 million. In the first instance, the U.S. Department of Defense renewed Embry-Riddle’s contract as the sole provider of aviation-related degree programs to the U.S. military in Europe. Under the second contract, Embry-Riddle provides introductory flight training at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs to cadets and lieutenants who will become Air Force pilots. In the third major contract, Embry-Riddle is training Air Force, Air National Guard, and international flight safety officers at the Air Force Safety Center at Kirtland AFB in Albuquerque, N.M.

Dr. Ebbs is chairman of the Board of Directors of the Southeastern States SATSLAB Consortium, a NASA initiative to create a small aircraft transportation system modeled on the U.S. interstate highway system. Under his leadership, the FAA chose Embry-Riddle to lead its General Aviation Center of Excellence, a partnership of academia, industry, and government agencies dedicated to the research and development of aviation-related technologies.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and serves on the Board of Governors of the Wings Club of New York and on the Associate Member Advisory Council of the National Business Aviation Association.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering. Embry-Riddle educates more than 30,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Extended Campus at more than 130 centers in the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Middle East, and through distance learning.