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Expert on Organizational Communication, Phillip Tompkins, to Speak at Embry-Riddle

Daytona Beach, Fla., Jan. 3, 2006 -- The leading cause of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters was poor organizational communication, according to noted authority Dr. Phillip Tompkins.

Tompkins will speak on this topic Thursday, Jan. 19, at 7:30 p.m. in the Miller Instructional Center auditorium at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, 600 S. Clyde Morris Blvd., Daytona Beach. The event is free and open to the public.

Tompkins’ address, which kicks off the annual meeting of the Industry Advisory Board of Embry-Riddle’s Communication Program, is sponsored by the Communication Program, the Honors Program, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

In his 2005 book, Apollo, Challenger, and Columbia: The Decline of the Space Program, Tompkins chronicles 45 years of communication triumphs and defeats by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. His association with NASA began in the late 1960s, when legendary rocket scientist Wernher von Braun invited him to study the agency’s organizational communication. Since then, Tompkins has continued as a consultant and workshop presenter for NASA, and his findings about the miscommunication that led to the Challenger disaster were cited in congressional hearings.

Tompkins is a fellow and past president of the International Communication Association and served in a number of positions in the National Communication Association. He is a professor emeritus of Communication and Comparative Literature at the University of Colorado in Boulder; a former dean of the School of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education at Purdue University; and the founding chair of the Organizational Communication Program at the State University at Albany. As one of the fathers of organizational communication, Tompkins has lectured around the world and has authored five books, 23 book chapters, and countless articles.

In addition to the Embry-Riddle keynote address and a luncheon with communication students, Tompkins will teach seminars on the importance of communication in two classes: Dr. Joanne Detore-Nakamura’s Media Relations I course, in which students are reading Tompkins’ most recent book, and Dr. Lynnette Porter’s Honors Technical Communication course. The newest member of the Communication Program’s Industry Advisory Board, Tompkins will mentor students on how to communicate effectively in science and technology fields such as aviation and aerospace.

For more information, contact Dr. Joanne Detore-Nakamura at (386) 226-7903 or detor6ee@erau.edu.

Embry-Riddle, 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 32,000 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 worldwide through distance learning.