OWL NOTES
Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Georgia in Athens. Marsha Levy ’77, ’83 of Fort Lauderdale, FL, was named to the Broward Community College Foundation board of directors. Lou Larkin ’78, ’85 of West Palm Beach, FL, is chief technologist at Lockheed Martin’s Riviera Beach facility. He was named Lockheed Martin Fellow, a rare distinction that recognizes individuals who make significant contributions to sustaining Lockheed Martin’s leadership in advanced technologies.
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Christine Crandell ’79, ’82 of Miami, FL, was named executive vice president and chief marketing officer for Egenera, a virtualization technology company serving 350 customers worldwide. John Valentino ’79 of West Palm Beach, FL, was hired by AEG, one of the country’s largest music promoters, to head its Florida operations.
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1980s Kevin McAllister ’80 of Spotsylvania, VA, earned a second master of science degree from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in Washington, DC. He was recognized as a Distinguished Graduate, an honor given only to the top 10 percent of the graduating class.
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Vickie Allender ’81 of Bokeelia, FL, health and physical education teacher at Trafalgar Middle School, retired after 30 years of service in the Lee County School District. Clarence Anthony ’81, ’82 of West Palm Beach, FL, is chief marketing officer and presiding director of the board of directors for global consulting firm, PBS&J, and former Mayor of South Bay, was recognized by the Orange Bowl Committee for his contributions to the South Florida community. Oscar Fumagali ’81 of Boca Raton, FL, is the chief financial officer for Brightstar Corporation. He won the CFO of the Year Award from the South Florida Business Journal. Antonios Loudaros ’81 of Jupiter, FL, is a teacher at Elbridge Gale Elementary School. Loudaros has carried the torch for the 1996, 2000, 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games.
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Susan Ruby ’82 of Delray Beach, FL, will be retiring as Delray Beach city attorney. She was the city’s first female and longest-serving attorney.
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Barbara “Kim” Beaumont ’83 of Ocean Ridge, FL, was appointed to the board of the Old School Square Cultural Arts Center. Donald Dufresne ’83 of Wellington, FL, is an attorney with the law firm Greenspoon Marder, P.A. Kevin Ann Huckshorn ’83 of Alexandria, VA, is the director of the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors. She was named 2008 Psychiatric Nurse of the Year by the American Psychiatric Nurses Association. Sharon Swendner ’83 of Orlando, FL, president of marketing for Orlandobased about. com, was recently elected to the board of directors for doterati, the first professional organization in Flori da focused on interactive marketing, media and technology. Emile Decuba ’84 of Fort Peirce, FL, a professional tennis player was honored as the United States Tennis Professionals Association Pro of the Year.
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22 legacy fall 2009
Anthony Hughes ’96 Sixteen years ago Anthony Hughes ’96 was at a crossroads in his life and never imagined the adventure that awaited him. The Pennsylvania native, then in his 30s and newly recovered from a debilitating eye disease that sidelined him for years, was watching his father battle brain cancer. “Despite the illness, my parents enjoyed every day,” says Hughes who, at his dad’s urging, returned to college. “I enrolled at FAU as a mathematics major and was struck by the personalities Anthony Hughes accepts the Aegis Balistic Missile Defense (BMD) Excellence Award from Navy Rear of my talented professors. Dr. Lee Klingler and Adm. and Aegis BMD Program Director Alan B. Hicks. Dr. Stephen Locke offered life-changing advice about career possibilities. They encouraged me at a time when I really needed it.” After graduating from FAU in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, Hughes taught algebra at Palm Beach Community College before relocating to Bedford, MA. He was hired as a software engineer for Raytheon’s Electronic Systems division where he found himself applying familiar math concepts to an unfamiliar topic — radar technology. Hughes grasped the subject quickly. “Math teaches you to think logically,” he says. When Raytheon relocated its Missile Systems division to Arizona in 1999, Hughes welcomed the challenge, accepting a systems engineer position for the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle, a land-based ballistic missile interceptor. He was later promoted as a lead senior systems engineer for the sea-based Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) Six-Degrees-OfFreedom simulation, responsible for software development and analysis. In January 2008, Hughes received a “drop everything” order when the U.S. Navy and Department of Defense approached Raytheon with a highly classified mission request. Hughes and a small band of engineers were asked to reconfigure the SM-3 to intercept a potentially dangerous, non-functioning spy satellite that had lost communication with ground control after its 2006 launch. The timeline was tight and the challenge daunting. The satellite was predicted to reenter the earth’s atmosphere in less than 30 days and the SM-3 was designed to hit ballistic missiles — not satellites. Sequestered in a lab round-the-clock, Hughes spent countless hours crunching numbers and running simulated flight tests to hit the target — the spacecraft’s 1,000-lb tank filled with hydrazine fuel. Traveling 17,000 mph, the satellite was the size of a school bus; the tank the size of a bus seat. When at last the SM-3 was launched from a Navy cruiser, the USS Lake Erie, it obliterated the spacecraft 153 miles over the Pacific Ocean into small debris that burned safely in the atmosphere. With his first top-secret assignment behind him, Hughes continues his own personal mission. “I tutor kids in math and science to pass on what my parents, my faith, teachers and FAU professors passed on to me,” he says. Hughes is a Raytheon representative in Math Engineering and Science Achievement (MESA), a mentoring program for middle and high school students. He judges MESA’s science competitions and is thrilled that many of his former students are now engineers. “I always thought I’d be a teacher and then life brought me down a different path. Now I have the best of both worlds,” he says. Hughes was awarded the University of Arizona’s Dr. Alfonso Ortega Engineer of the Year Award for his work with MESA and was named Senior Engineer with Honors by Raytheon last year. To see a video clip of the SM-3 mission,visit:www.raytheon.com/newsroom/technology/ rtn08_intercept/.