NEWS RELEASE

Communications and Marketing Office
600 S. Clyde Morris Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114-3900

For more information, contact:
Phone: 386-226-6157
Fax: 386-226-6158
Contact: Bill Thompson
Phone: 928-777-6961

John Wing, Chairman of Wing Aviation, to Speak at Embry-Riddle Commencement

John Wing Prescott, Ariz., April 2, 2009 -- The Spring Commencement ceremony for 225 students of Embry-Riddle’s Prescott campus will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, May 2, on the campus athletic field at 3700 Willow Creek Road, Prescott, Ariz.

The guest speaker will be John Wing, a current member of Embry-Riddle’s Board of Trustees and founder and chairman of Wing Aviation, a full-service aviation company serving principally the corporate jet and airline markets. The company operates its own fleet of Gulfstream jets, as well as providing maintenance, avionics, paint, and interior services for customers worldwide. Wing Aviation is headquartered at Lone Star Executive Airport in Conroe, Texas, where it provides fuel and other fixed based operations to both civilian and military customers.

Since the 1980s, Wing has been recognized as a world leader in the creation of the independent power industry. He founded and led the Wing Group, the developer of multibillion dollar power projects worldwide. These included Teesside in the United Kingdom, the largest energy project of the 1990s worldwide, as well as a $700 million project in Turkey, the first privatized power project ever in the Middle East. The Wing Group remains well known for its innovation and successes, as well as its use of personnel with military backgrounds in most key positions.

Wing is also a founding owner of the Boston Brewing Co., which produces Samuel Adams beer and is the owner of several corporations, principally related to real estate and oil and gas investments. He is an active investor in the securities industry worldwide.

Wing is a former vice chairman of Embry-Riddle’s Board of Trustees and a former board member of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He has served on various governmental commissions and committees throughout his career.

He holds a B.S. degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and an MBA degree from Harvard University, where he graduated with high distinction and was designated a Baker Scholar. He served as a pilot in the U.S. Army and is a Vietnam veteran.

The outdoor commencement will also include the commissioning as second lieutenants of 20 U.S. Air Force, nine U.S. Army, and two U.S. Marine graduates.

The ceremony will be followed by a reception in the Activity Center. Call (928) 777-6642 for more information.

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, educating more than 34,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs. Doctoral programs in aviation and in engineering physics are pending approval by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) for the University to offer programs at the doctoral level. Embry-Riddle educates students at residential campuses in Prescott, Ariz., and Daytona Beach, Fla., through the Worldwide Campus at more than 130 Campus centers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East, and through online learning. For more information, visit www.embryriddle.edu.