Faculty With Real-world Experience
Everyone knows that experience counts. Our faculty has a wealth of real-world aerospace industry experience to share with their engineering students. Take a look at the industry backgrounds of a few of our teachers:
Dr. Mark Sensmeier's (Aerospace Engineering Dept.) experience
while at GE Aircraft Engines, Ohio, dealt with developing
the advanced composite materials used for the fan blades in the GE90 engine,
the world's largest jet engine. A couple of challenges were to design the blades
to withstand lightning strikes as well as large bird impacts while flying.
Dr. Sensmeier also worked at Arnold Engineering Development Center,
Tennessee, where he developed computer models on structural durability for
the F-22 jet engines.
Dr. David Lanning (Aerospace Engineering Dept.) has conducted numerous experimental and theoretical research projects working on the U.S. Air Force High Cycle Fatigue Program, a large program including both government and industry partners. The major portion of his work was on jet engine turbine blades to determine the impact on the lifetime of the turbine blade when impacted by FOD (foreign object damage, "small particles").
Jim Helbling (Aerospace Engineering Dept.) has vast aircraft experience from more than 20 years with Northrop Grumman. His work dealt mainly with the T-38, F-5, F-20, and YF-23 aircrafts. Besides his detailed engineering experience, Jim also traveled to many parts of the world to meet with foreign customers.
Dr. Tom Gally (Aerospace Engineering Dept.) gained in-depth knowledge of advanced aerodynamics while at Boeing, Seattle, Washington.
Gary Gear, P.E. (Electrical Engineering Dept.) gained extensive experience with computational digital logic while working for Texas Instruments. He designed the first single silicon chip capable of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, thus spawning the hand held calculator business. He then went to Intel Corporation where he spent eight years designing microprocessor chips, primarily for embedded control applications. Several of his microprocessor designs were ultimately incorporated into Intel's Automotive Division when the division was formed in 1980. He founded four small high tech companies before joining ERAU.
Dr. James Lyall designed weather radar, distance measuring equipment, transponders and transceivers while working at King Radio Corp. (now a division of Honeywell) in Olathe, KS from 1975 to 1985. He served as Director of Engineering for the Civil System Division of Smiths Industries in Malvern, PA from 1985 until joining Embry Riddle as Electrical Engineering Department Chairman in Fall of 1987. Since 1985 he has served on RTCA Special Committee 135, which is responsible for developing environmental test procedures used in aircraft equipment certification.
Mr. Allen Newman (Electrical/Computer Engineering Dept.), is a retired engineering executive of Hughes Aircraft Company - Defense Systems Group (now Raytheon Corporation), of Tucson, AZ. Mr. Newman has extensive experience in satellite uplink and downlink communication software as well the design and production of aerospace systems for the US military.
Currently he is involved in the design and maintainence of an on-line aviation safety database for the Federal Aviation Administration.
Dr. Stephen Kahne and colleagues founded InterDesign, Inc., an environmental design firm in Minneapolis in 1968. Among other projects that team designed the Minnesota State Zoological Garden, a zoo outside the Twin Cities. He was an active industrial consultant for many years while holding faculty positions at a number of universities. He has served as department head, engineering dean, and president at universities in the U.S., and was president of the International Federation of Automatic Control headquartered outside of Vienna, Austria. He has lectured in over 50 countries on various topics in control and system engineering. Before coming to ERAU as the Prescott Campus Chancellor, he was Chief Scientist of the Washington Group of The MITRE Corporation.
These faculty members, along with our entire faculty, are here for one purpose -- to teach young students about the aerospace world. One of the best ways that they do that is incorporating their aerospace industry experiences into their classes .
You will learn from the experiences of our faculty and graduate with knowledge that cannot be obtained from a book. Real-world experience counts.
