Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine Vol. 83, No. 01 2006

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'7 started funding my endowment during my lifetime so I can see the scholarships awarded and meet the students it will help/'

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Shelby and James H. Maughon, CE 1968 Lawrenceville, Georgia • Lifelong resident of Gwinnett County, Georgia, attended Tech-Georgia freshman football games on Thanksgiving Day with his father.

• President of Hayes, James and Associates, a civil engineering company headquartered in Norcross, Georgia. First job with the firm was during high school sweeping floors; worked at firm between quarters and during summers as a Tech studentfull-time employee upon graduation from Georgia Tech.

• Member of Gwinnett County Development Authority.

• Charter Member of the Georgia Bioscicnce Development Authority.

• In 2004, District Governor for North Georgia Area for Rotary Club of Gwinnett County.

• Volunteer for thirty plus years with Northeast Georgia Council of Boy Scouts of America; recipient of Silver Beaver Award.

• Gwinnett County Children's Shelter board member.

• Married to Shelby, a salon owner and avid Georgia Tech fan.

Gifts to Georgia Tech • Gifts to establish the James H. Maughon Scholarship in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, with additional funding through will provision.

• Donor to Roll Call for forty-three consecutive years.

• Donor to Alexander-Tharpe Fund for thirty-two consecutive years.

Thoughts on Giving to Georgia Tech: "The motto of Rotary International is 'Service Above Self.' This is what I believe everyone needs to follow in life. The way that I have chosen to follow this motto is through giving to Georgia Tech. I started funding my endowment during my lifetime so I can see the scholarships awarded and meet the students it will help. After my death, an additional sum will be added to the fund, creating my legacy at Georgia Tech."

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For more information on helping students at Georgia Tech through a bequest or life-income gift, please contact: Office of Development • Planned Giving • Atlanta GA 30332-0220 • or call (404) 894-4678

James H. Maughon is one of 877 members of Georgia Tech's Founders' Council, an honorary society of alumni and friends, who have made non-contingent life income gifts or estate provisions of at least $25,000 for the support of Georgia Tech.

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Cover Story

Olympic Legacy

Being No. 1 Isn't Always About Winning First Place

The summer of 1996 changed Atlanta forever and won international acclaim for Georgia Tech's technological know-how.

The Georgia Tech golf team, led by coach Bruce Heppler (cover), remains on the fringe of an NCAA title, but the program still lands on the pages of sports magazines with the No. 1 ranking.

Romancing the Roadster

Applying Economics

Tubas and Test Tubes

From the stylish classics of yesterday to sleek, powerful, modern marvels of machinery, the Georgia Tech Auto Show had it all. More than 2,000 people came to ooh and ah over the timeless favorites, three-wheel electrics and high-speed legends featured in the third-annual event.

Economics, sometimes disparaged as the "dismal science," has changed significantly since Danny Boston began teaching it 30 years ago. The Georgia Tech professor has changed too. There was a time when he wouldn't discuss his experiences in Vietnam.

Blockbuster author Thomas L. Friedman praises Georgia Tech's approach to education in the 21st century in this chapter from his expanded edition of his bestseller, "The World Is Flat."

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Cover Photo: Michael Schwarz

GeorgiaTechSii ALUMNI MAGAZINE ^ ^ ^ ^ ^

VOLUME 83, NUMBER 1

Photo: Larry Herndon

Pacesetter Steven Cover: City Energizer

Interview

Viewpoint

InFocus

It's Personal

Readers write

• Cleaner Tech • Presidents' Dinner • Notre Dame Opener • Crew Claims Crown

InQuotes

Tech Notes

Comments in the media from the Tech community

Philanthropist Bernie Marcus

Feedback

makes a $15 million commitment to build Tech's Nanotechnology Research Center

Pacesetter Mark Ottinger: Memphis Merger

Pacesetter Franco Cimatti: The Italian Job

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

Sam Shelton discusses the oil crisis, alternative fuel and America's energy future

Alumni Almanac

Research Review

A 1956 survey of high school students discovered atomic scientists were in the cellar of most-desired occupations — behind clerks and mechanics

Graphene — a carbon material — may revolutionize microelectronics

Faculty Profile Tim Patterson: Paper Work

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Georgia Tech Alumni A s s o c i a t i o n Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80, Publisher John C. Dunn, Editor Kimberly Link-Wills, Managing Editor Neil B. McGahee, Senior Editor Leslie Overman, Editorial Assistant Gary Goettling, Contributing Editor Everett Hullum, Design

Alumni Association Executive Committee Janice N. Wittschiebe, Arch 78, M Arch 80 Chair J. William Goodhew III, IM 61 Past Chair C. Meade Sutterfield, EE 72 Chair-elect/Finance William J. Todd, IM 71 Vice Chair for Roll Call C. Dean Alford, EE 76 Joseph W. Evans, IM 71 Marion B. Glover, IM 65 Joseph P. Irwin, IM 80 President

Advertising Maris Ozug (404) 894-0766 • E-mail: maris.ozug@alumni.gatech.edu

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine (ISSN: 1061-9747) is published quarterly (Summer, Fall, Winter and Spring) for contributors to the annual Roll Call of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, 190 North Ave. NW, Atlanta, GA 30313.

Georgia Tech Alumni Association allocates $10 from a contribution toward a year's subscription to its magazine.

Periodical postage paid at Atlanta, GA and additional mailing offices. © 2006 Georgia Tech Alumni Association Main Number (404) 894-2391

It's Personal Why should you care about Georgia Tech and its future?

First, Tech's most important legacy is its alumni. The degree that you earned here links you inextricably to Tech's past and to its future.

As the Institute's reputation rises so too does the value of your own degree. So it's personal.

Second, Tech is educating future leaders of America and indeed even some other countries. Training great future leaders in a world where change is the most certain of factors is crucial to the success of America. And this education is now taking form as both multidisciplinary and global. And that's important too.

Third, the engine created by a great research university develops and sustains economic growth for the state, the country and the world.

Economic development means jobs. And economic well-being is the foundation of every stable society. That's crucial.

Fourth, Georgia Tech needs you. Tech's aspiration is to "define the technological research university of the 21st century." That means learning from others but emulating no one. Your proactive, resourceful leadership is critical to build the future that we aspire to on top of a remarkable heritage. It won't happen otherwise.

Herbert Spencer said long ago, "The great aim of education is not knowledge but action."

So don't sit back. Georgia Tech was built because of alumni who cared, alumni with vision, alumni with passion. You are one of those alumni.

If you're part of this great endeavor already, thank you. If you're not, join us! There's room for everyone.

?pn P. Irwin, President

Postmaster: Send address changes to Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine, 190 North Ave. NW, Atlanta, GA 30313.

Editorial phone (404) 894-0750/0760; Fax (404) 385-4637; E-mail: editor@alumni.gatech.edu; gtalumni.org

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

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DBACK> G eorgia T e c i

Energy Partnership

• Partnership-type actions between workers and managers to resolve concerns about nuclear safety and nuclear materials safeguards and between regulators and those regulated to ensure the best safety, productivity and costeffectiveness of nuclear power plants and other licensed nuclear facilities.

I attended the Georgia Tech Alumni Association innovation program on the energy crisis and I am convinced increased use of nuclear power is needed to end our addiction to imported oil.

Nuclear power is of no value as an alternative fuel for automobiles, but I took MARTA to the meeting. Electricity, which can be supplied by nuclear power plants, powers MARTA trains.

The Department of Energy was created in 1977 to address critical energy issues because of the inability of the United States to recover enough oil to meet our nation's demands. The management of energy and nuclear technology by the DOE and its laboratories lacks the incentives and accountability of corporate enterprise and often works against U.S. interests.

There is a better approach.

I presented a paper in 1996 at the Global Foundation (University of Miami Center for Theoretical Studies) that recommends: • A U.S. energy and nuclear technology board with ex-officio members and those appointed by the president with

the advice and consent of the Senate that would meet periodically to recommend long-term energy and nuclear technology plans, policies and strategies for America.

• Competent corporate instead of government management of energy and nuclear technology.

• Beneficial use of nuclear materials instead of their disposal.

• Full and accurate information to Americans about nuclear technology and limitations, challenges and/or nonviability of alternative energy sources.

• Revitalization of President Dwight Eisenhower's vision of Atoms for Peace, with cooperation among nations for full use of safeguarded, well-managed and well-conceived nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

"We're at the stage right now where there are real questions whether we should rebuild or what we should rebuild. Clearly the city will forever change — Joseph Hughes Chair oTthe School of CivilaQC; Environmental Engineerings

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

I recommend that we form a "Partnership for America" to develop and implement ideas to resolve long-neglected energy and nuclear technology challenges and avoid adverse consequences inherent in government management of complex technology.

Clinton Bastin, ChE 50 Atlanta Bastin worked for the Department of Energy for more than 40 years and had lead responsibility for programs of the Atomic Energy Commission.

New Orleans Renewal

teaching was obvious. He was always willing to stay after class to help a student who did not understand all of the material just covered. And he would say to the class, "Should you call me at 3 in the morning and I don't want to talk about electrical engineering, take me to the hospital."

Some of his brighter students, who finished exams early, were wont to wander aimlessly about the building, thereby disturbing others. Dr. Nottingham tactfully admonished his students to cease this annoying practice.

While he demonstrated firmness, his sense of humor was apparent in this couplet of his: Frank's my name and frank I am, And I am the sheriff of Nottingham.

Small wonder that his students held him in highest esteem.

Hal Branch, EE 51 Goodlettsville, Tenn.

I loved Kimberly Link-Wills' interview with Joseph Hughes on New Orleans. It is by far the sanest and most rational article I've read on how to rebuild (or not) New Orleans. The words are great, the pictures wonderful and the numbers pull it all together. Can you tell I'm an engineer? Keep it up.

Stephen G. Chappell, EE 69 Rumson, N.J.

We Welcome Mail The ALUMNI MAGAZINE welcomes

Unforgettable Professor I shall never forget Frank Nottingham, who taught industrial electronics. He came to Georgia Tech after a long career with General Electric.

Dr. Nottingham was a native of Norfolk, Va., and was very stately in his bearing. He stood about 6 foot 2 and his love of

letters. Please include your full name, address and telephone number. Letters may be edited for clarity, space and content.

Mail/e-mail to: Georgia Tech Alumni Publications 190 North Ave. NW Atlanta, GA 30313 Fax: (404) 385-4637 editor@alumni.gatech.edu

FEEDBACK<<<

Global Warming Gets Cold Shoulder In a letter to the editor, an alumnus contests the contention that temperatures are on the rise.

By David A. Martin, ChE 79

At the 2006 annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, former President Bill Clinton named his greatest concerns. He put climate change first, claiming that global warming "has the power to end the march of civilization as we know it."

Global warming has caused a lot of controversy over the past decade. The basic contention is that humankind has caused the planet's climate to change radically by burning fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide and other "greenhouse gases." These greenhouse gases trap heat, causing the temperature to rise. Over time this global warming will produce disastrous consequences such as altering agriculture, melting polar ice caps and flooding coastal cities. The solution: We must burn less to survive the coming holocaust.

The global warming position can be rebutted on three fronts.

• There is no evidence that the temperature has actually warmed since the human population began burning large quantities of fossil fuels.

• Even if the temperature can be shown to have risen in the last century, there is no evidence that the warming was caused by human activities or greenhouse gases.

• Even if global warming can be proven and can be linked to the burning of fossil fuels, it is not clear that a minute change in temperature will result in bad consequences.

As a chemical engineer specializing in statistical process control, I have looked at thousands of statistical charts over the last couple of decades. The most basic statistical course will tell you that all trends combine variation from three basic sources: the process itself, the sampling method and the measurement method.

When it comes to the incredibly complex issue of global warming, both sampling and measurement methods probably constitute a substantial part of the trend we see on the charts. Since the thermometer was invented in 1714, we only have reliable data going back about a century and a half. Trying to extrapolate a future course from such a tiny amount of data is ludicrous.

The geographic and spatial placement of temperature probes can have a significant impact on the aggregate

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average. Depending on how the temperature readings are aggregated, you may see a substantial rise, no rise or a fall in temperature. The time of day and time of year in which the data is taken can skew the readings. We simply don't have a uniform set of readings taken by the same instruments at the same locations and times over and over for hundreds of years.

There is even some data to suggest that the temperature has fallen at some locations over the past century.

Novelist Michael Crichton ("State of Fear") shows chart after chart of places where the temperature has either dropped or stayed even over the past century. His data is obtained from the U.S. Historical Climatology Network Web site. If warming is truly global, how does one explain these anomalies?

The factors impacting global climate are enormously complicated. They include proximity to the sun, solar activity, ocean currents, rain and snow activity, volcanic activity and precession of the Earth's axis. The Earth's temperature has been rising and falling over millions of years before human industrial activity. There was an ice age 10,000 years ago during which much of the current area of North America was covered in a thick sheet of ice. The temperature then warmed and the ice melted. There was a widely documented warming period in the years 1000 to 1270 AD when Greenland was actually a green land. How did it happen by itself long before the Sierra Club started complaining about burning fossil fuels?

It is the height of hubris to think that humanity can either influence or even predict weather patterns decades out. If we can't predict the weather two weeks from now, how can we predict it 100 years from now?

Global warming rests on three pillars, all of which are weak. First, there is no compelling evidence that the temperature has risen. Second, even if the temperature has gone up, there is no evidence that human activities or greenhouse gases have caused it. And third, even if pillars one and two can be established, there is no reason to panic. The planet got through the medieval warming period quite nicely and may actually be entering a golden era like that of the Vikings. Relax and lighten up. Enjoy the warm weather, G T

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One criticism of biofuels is that if you want to go from 2 percent to 20 percent, you would have to direct so much of that agriculturefromfood to fuel that there would be real competition between the two. Even worse, if we have a famine in part of the world, we would have to make a decision as a society between food or fuel — Arthur J. Ragauskas Georgia Tech associate professor of chemistry and biochemistry and co-author of a study of biofuels, in Science magazine quoted in the Associated Press

There's a lot of stereotype — that it's a boy thing, it's a geek thing. But that's just not true anymore.

— Veronica Peshterianu 21-year-old Georgia Tech computer science graduate, on the College of Computing's revamped curriculum, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

tt There's a serious attempt to create some form of urbanity out of a relic of another world. But the site in its entirety appears to be overprogrammed. You

have apartmentville, retail town and Chinese youths don't know that office town. I don't know if that's millions died in the 1950s or that the because of planning or in order to CCP ordered a famine in Changchun accommodate all the different investors [Jilin province] that caused hundreds of who were taking out pieces of it, but thousands of deaths, far more than died it falls short in some measure, particuin Nanjing [a Japanese army massacre]. larly the architecture. But it will get To head off a repeat of the historical better over time, especially as it's fully tragedies of many past rising powers ... built out.

— Douglas C. Allen the Chinese people must not be misled Tech associate dean of architecture, about the about their own history any longer; development of Atlanta's Atlantic Station on the site there must be a marketplace for comof a former steel mill, in The New York Times peting ideas, open discourse and judicious reasoning.

— Wang Fei-ling Chinese-born historian and associate professor at Georgia Tech, in the Christian Science Monitor

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It was created during the Cold War to conduct tests for the military, but now a Georgia Tech lab has a much more grounded mission: to find ways to make everyday items more accessible to disabled people. About half the work at the Georgia Tech Research Institute's accessibility division is now dedicated to such testing, while the rest is still spent on military projects. — Associated Press

Our main theme is to allow • [senior adults] to maintain quality of life and independence and to give people a real choice in an affordable way to be able to use technology in their own home.

— Gregory Abowd College of Computing professor, discussing the Aware Home on CBS News

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This isn't cold technology for a cold, heartless society. It serves a real purpose and shows real promise.

— Richard Suzman of the National Institute on Aging, on memory-aid systems developed

by Georgia Tech computer engineers that allow people to look back on instant digital photos of themselves to help them remember what tasks they have completed that day, in the Chicago Tribune

ii There is not an unlimited amount of money that we can spend on a memorial.

The two governors and I think that this is the amount and let's get on with it.

— Michael Bloomberg mayor of New York City, concerning an agreement to cap at $500 million the expenses for the World Trade Center memorial designed by Michael Arad, M Arch 99, in The Wall Street Journal

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Imagine the business problems that could be solved with high-performance computing — the innovation, the new products to be developed and sold and the competitive advantage the United States can have harnessing these phenomenal advances in the next five to 10 years.

— John Mullin Georgia Tech chief information officer, in TechLINKS

it Our recruiting numbers are up significantly this year — 16.5 percent — and salaries are better. Today's graduates are savvier about what's happening in the work environment. They've seen older classmates struggle to find jobs and been told by their parents — and us — about the importance of looking at the whole package.

— Ralph Mobley director of career services at Georgia Tech, in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Once that convergence becomes invisible to the customer, we're going to see interesting applications start forming.

We're going to see a lot more developments around mobility, hybrid systems and applications that transparently help users do things they couldn't do otherwise, without having to know too much about technology.

— Ron Hutchins chief technology officer at Georgia Tech, in TechLINKS

u Academic and tech industry leaders also are striving to make computing more exciting. The University of California at Berkeley and Georgia Institute of Technology, among others, are developing multidisciplinary programs linking technology, business and social sciences.

— BusinessWeek

If there was a catastrophic attack, we'd have to be able to respond in real time and react to changes along the way. That is really the power of this system — it's able to handle a large-scale population so that we could plan ahead of time but then also make changes on the spot.

— Eva Lee associate professor of industrial and systems engineering, concerning a software program she created that determines how and where to set up emergency clinics, in the Atlanta Business Chronicle

i The coastal regions are in jeopardy. Miami and New Orleans are very much at risk. We have a 10-year window to do something about greenhouse gases.

— Judith Curry chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, in Reuters

it What's exciting is the convergence between Wi-Fi and cellular. I don't think it's a competition so much as a coming together of each of these technologies.

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Georgia T e d » l u m n i Magazine • Summer 200

'Clean-Tech' Companies Gain Traction

Atop Georgia Tech's Aquatic Center nearly 3,000 photovoltaic panels produce as much as 30 percent of the electricity needed to power the building. Researchers Miroslav Begovic, Aleksander Pregelj and Christiana Honsberg evaluated the long-term performance of the system, one of many efforts to combat soaring fuel prices and rising greenhouse gas levels. Tech is focusing on cleaner, more sustainable technologies in its support of start-up companies formed in the Institute's VentureLab program. Among the new firms pursuing "cleantech" products and services are: • C2 Biofuels, which seeks to develop fuelethanol production from biomass available in large quantities in the Southeast, including pine.

• Climate Forecast Applications, developing tools to forecast cyclones and hurricanes 10 to 30 days ahead.

• WiSPI, creating methanol-based fuel cells that can be integrated onto silicon chips, enabling self-powered, wireless sensors that could monitor everything from soil moisture to weather patterns.

• LumoFlex, developing organic photovoltaic materials that offer substantial power savings.

• Ajeetco, a solar energy company working to produce large-scale photovoltaic solar panels.

• Plum Combustion enables efficient burning obtaining low-NOx emissions without catalysts.

• Virtual Aerosurface, which develops tiny devices that, installed in aircraft wings or wind turbines, emit "microjets" of air that adjust lift and drag to improve control and save fuel.

• Vehicle Monitoring Technology, which watches vehicle activity and emissions in conjunction with driver behavior to promote safety, air quality and energy efficiency.

• Waitless Algorithms, a ride- and vehiclesharing technology that could result in fewer vehicles on the road in smog-plagued urban areas. >»

ROLLC Your aft Enhance) the Value 1 nfEwrulechDetree '

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

Whale of a Time

More than 800 alumni attended the Presidents' Dinner for 59th Roll Call Leadership Circle donors in May at the Georgia Aquarium. President Wayne Clough (center) co-hosted the event with Bill Goodhew (right), chairman of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, and Herky Harris, chairman-elect of the Georgia Tech Foundation. The Georgia Tech chamber choir directed by Jerry Ulrich, associate professor of music, performed at the dinner. Goodhew told the group, "World-class universities have five distinctive characteristics — remarkable students, outstanding faculty and researchers, incredible facilities, superior leadership and extraordinary alumni support. Your support truly makes the difference in the success of this great Institute." >» Photo: Gary Meek

INFOCUS>> Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

Jackets Battle Notre Dame in Night Opener

The Yellow Jackets open the football season in a night game again Fighting Irish on Sept. 2. Kickoff at Bobby Dodd Stadium at 8 p.m. will be nationally televised by ABC. In addition, ESPN's "College GameDay," featuring host Chris Fowler and analysts Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso, will originate from the Georgia Tech campus that Saturday. Tech, led by AllAmerican wide receiver Calvin Johnson, is coming off its ninth straight winning season and ninth straight bowl berth with a 7-5 record in 2005, including a 5-3 mark in the ACC, highlighted by wins over top 10 teams Auburn and Miami. Notre Dame is expected to be highly ranked in the preseason after finishing the 2005 season with a 9-3 record and a No. 9 ranking. Tech and Notre Dame have played 32 times, but the Irish will be making their first trip to Atlanta since 1980, when the Yellow Jackets tied then-No. 1-ranked Notre Dame 3-3. The teams have met three times since then as Tech fell at Notre Dame in 1981 (35-3) and 1997 (17-13), then defeated the Irish 35-28 in the 1999 Gator Bowl in Jacksonville, Fla. The Yellow Jackets will make a return trip to Notre Dame Stadium in 2007. > Âť

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G e o r g i a IC T e c h M Building ^m^DQ©©&ia[P© Construction Program Seventh Annual

JIM DREGER GOLF CLASSIC Benefiting the Georgia Tech Building Construction Program The Georgia lech Building Construction Program would like to thank the following sponsors for their support of the 2006 Jim Drever GoL

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

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The Georgia Tech men's varsity lightght eight-plus crew won a nati championship and the men's heavy' M A I weight varsity four-plus finished secoi 101131 at the Dad Vail Regatta, collegiate rowliiri ing's biggest event, in Philadelphia May 13. The lightweight eight-plus win punctuated a dominating season marred by only a narrow defeat to St. Joseph's Uni~l versity in April. The Yellow Jackets Jr''* trounced that same boat by nearly three seconds to win the championship â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the first Tech eight to ever win gold at Dad Vail. "We were ecstatic," says coach Rot Canavan. "Last fall, we beat most of the l\ Ivy League colleges and won the silver medal at the Head of the Charles race Boston so I knew we had something specijl." Hoisting the championship trophy !'*~ÂŁtt (ieft to right) Brian Holman, Cameron Troxel, Ben Good, coxswain Theresa Mara, Shane Bechler, John Kapteyn, Elijah Holsenbeck, Michael Pieper, Geoff Shealy and C

laims National Crown

Coupled with $5 million from the Woodruff Foundation, the Marcus gift pushes the total of private funds for the project past the $20 million mark, the minimum amount required to begin construction. The total private funds goal is $35 million.

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he Marcus Foundation has made a $15 million commitment for Georgia Tech's Nanotechnology Research Center building, a facility specifically designed to support interdisciplinary nanoscience and nanotechnology research.

The commitment was triggered by the state of Georgia's recent allocation of $38 million for the facility, which completes the state's total project commitment of $45 million.

Bernie Marcus, the civic leader and philanthropist whose vision and investment made the Georgia Aquarium a reality, is also founder of the Marcus Foundation and serves as chairman of its board.

The new building will have 30,000 square

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer POOG

feet of clean room research space, one of the nation's largest and an essential element of nanotechnology research. It will offer access to researchers from universities and industries in the region, helping to create new nanotechnology businesses and attract industries that will benefit from nanoengineering.

Nanotechnology will produce materials 10 times stronger than steel but much lighter in weight, digital storage units the size of sugar cubes that can hold all the information in the Library of Congress and tiny medical devices that can detect individual cancer cells and target them with specialized treatment.

"We are delighted to make this commitment for Georgia Tech's Nanotechnology Research Center building," Marcus says. "Nanotechnology holds such amazing promise for truly revolu-

TECHNOTES>>> lionizing many facets of our lives, specifically in medicine, while having the added benefit of economic development. The discoveries that will be possible as a result will prove the wisdom of the investment. I am pleased to partner with the state and Georgia Tech in making this research facility a reality."

President Wayne Clough says, "As a son of Russian immigrants, Bernie Marcus represents one of America's great stories of what determination, hard work and intelligence can accomplish in our great country. In spite of setbacks, he realized his dream late in life as a businessman in creating The Home Depot and leading it to an undreamed of level of success.

"In retirement he once again is demonstrating his passion for life through his good works and philanthropy. He inspired our graduates at

our May commencement with his insights, an address given in the shadow of the remarkable Georgia Aquarium, built because of his support and vision," Clough says.

Provost Will Lead Caltech Jean-Lou Chameau, Georgia Tech provost and vice president for academic affairs, has been named president of the California Institute of Technology and will be departing the Institute at the end of August.

"Jean-Lou has played an indispensable role in the evolution of Georgia Tech's stature as one of our nation's top 10 public universities," President Wayne Clough says. "We are very proud of his appointment and hope to take > Âť

Zhong Lin Wang directs Tech's Center for Nanostructure Characterization and Fabrication.

Georgia Tech researchers have developed a technique to use a nanowire array (at left) to power nanometer-scale devices and alleviate the need for bulky energy sources such as batteries.

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

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>>>TECHNOTES

Chameau is the first foreign-born educator to be named head of Caltech in the school's 115-year history. At Tech, Chameau is noted for his efforts to increase diversity on campus, foster entrepreneurship, recruit women in science majors and improve students' overall educational experience.

advantage of this link between two of the nation's leading technological universities. We consider ourselves fortunate to have enjoyed the benefits of his talents for such an extraordinary length of time."

Chameau joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 1991 and has been provost and vice president for academic affairs at the Institute since June 1, 2001.

He has been a Georgia Research Alliance eminent scholar since 1995.

While dean of the largest college of engineering in the country, Chameau led educational and research programs in nine engineering disciplines and collectively conferred the largest number of engineering degrees to undergraduate and graduate students in the nation.

Chameau, 53, has been instrumental in making Tech a worldwide model for interdisciplinary activities, technology innovation, entrepreneurship and a catalyst for economic development. During his tenure he placed a strong focus on efforts to improve the educational experience of students, increase diversity on the campus, recruit women into engineering and science and foster entrepreneurship and international opportunities for faculty and students.

Chameau received his secondary and undergraduate education in France and graduate education in civil engineering from Stanford University.

NCAA Preserves Football Record An NCAA infractions committee preserved the standing of Georgia Tech's past football games, but sustained a probation requiring fewer scholarships through the 2006 and 2007 academic years.

The committee overturned a penalty that would have required Tech to wipe six seasons from the record books. The ruling allows the Yellow Jackets to keep the 1998 ACC football championship title it shares with Florida State as well as its bowl appearances.

The violations and penalties involve the improper certification of student athletes due to an inadvertent misapplication of NCAA eligibility certification rules by Athletic Association and Institute staff members.

Senior associate athletics director Paul Griffin, who has handled the case since the retirement of athletics director Dave Braine, says it started out as

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

a cooperative investigation by the NCAA enforcement staff and Tech.

"In that spirit, we provided everything we were asked to," Griffin says, including academic records of athletes who might have been beyond the scope of the NCAA's four-year statute of limitations.

Tech might have paid for being too cooperative.

Griffin told the Atlanta journal-Constitution, "[From now on], we need not to look at the NCAA staff as our partners but as our adversaries. If any institution is ever confronted with these types of allegations, the first call is to legal representation."

The NCAA infractions committee announced its sanctions last November. In January, Tech appealed the severity of the penalties. Tech originally selfimposed penalties to reduce the number of initial football scholarship players by six for the 2005 and 2006 academic years. The committee imposed additional penalties limiting the Institute to 79 scholarship players.

President Wayne Clough says Tech accepts the findings of the appeals committee. "We are particularly appreciative that the committee determined that the football team's records should stand. I am personally pleased that we are now able to close this issue and put it behind us."

Dan Radakovich, Tech's director of athletics since April 1, says, "Georgia Tech has a tradition of integrity and academic excellence that we are committed to upholding and enhancing.

"We're confident that the Institute and the Athletic Association now have the structures, procedures and personnel in place to effectively manage this process."

Tech Revamps Business Aid Georgia Tech is undertaking a sweeping reorganization of its business and community assistance programs to give them a sharper competitive edge in today's emerging world economy.

The restructuring created an Enterprise Innovation Institute that brings new and established programs together in an initiative applying science, technology and innovation to help industry, entrepreneurs, economic developers and communities become more competitive.

The new organization expands efforts to identify and transfer innovative ideas likely to have > Âť

American Success Story Chinese professors' children all earn Tech doctorates

By Leslie Overman In the early 1980s, Guanglun Jiang, a professor at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China, was sent to visit graduate schools in the United States. He wrote down the universities that had the most impressive graduate programs, including Georgia Tech.

When he returned to China, he shared his findings with his three children and his wife, Jinwen An, a professor who taught at Georgia Tech in the summer of 1998. All three of his children would leave China to earn doctoral degrees at the Institute. The youngest, Tianci Jiang, received her doctorate in aerospace engineering at the spring commencement ceremony May 6.

Her brothers — Tianyue Jiang, MS AE 96, MS CS 96, PhD 98, and Tianji Jiang, MS CS 98, PhD 00 — were both in attendance. Their father was not. He died of cancer in 2002.

"He explicitly stated that his greatest wish was that all of his children would receive their PhD degrees from the best U.S. graduate schools," Tianci Jiang says.

She enrolled at Tech in January 2000, a year before her father's diagnosis. The following August, Tianci Jiang started a co-op job at General Electric so she could assist her family with the mounting medical expenses.

She earned her master's in aerospace engineering in December 2001.

Tianci Jiang put her doctoral studies on hold to help her family, but returned to the Institute after her father's death. She says the flexible policies of the Office of International Education and the co-op program allowed her to complete her graduate studies at Georgia Tech. She man-

aged to have her out-of-state tuition waived and with her exceptional grades GE covered the in-state tuition. "I would not have been able to finish my PhD without the support of Georgia Tech and General Electric," she says.

Tianci Jiang has now been employed by GE for five years and is currently a gas turbine application engineer for the company.

Tianyue Jiang says, "Georgia Tech does have fair, flexible policies for school, accommodating the immigration laws of the U.S., that gave her the chance to be able to get real industry experience plus get the chance to get tuition covered here at Tech and the living expenses. Georgia Tech does provide a lot of great things."

er education here in the U.S. and make their plans feasible," he says.

Brother Tianji Jiang has been employed by CISCO Systems Inc. for six years. He says one of the most valuable aspects of a Georgia Tech education is the industry experience a student acquires from the co-op program and the contacts he or she attains in the process. He says he also applies the same problem-solving skills he learned at Georgia Tech to his current job.

It may have been a long journey from Xi'an to Atlanta for his children, but Guanglun Jiang's dream has finally come true, "Georgia Tech helped us realize our dreams," Tianci Jiang says.

"Beyond any doubt, my family has become a true Georgia Tech family."

"Fair, flexible policies" toward international students enabled the Jiang family to finance their degree quests.

Tianci Jiang (below, second from right) received her doctoral degree from President dough in May with brothers Tianji (left) and Tianyue in attendance.

In addition to holding three Georgia Tech degrees, Tianyue Jiang also was a professor in the College of Computing from 1997 to 2001. He is the co-founder and chairman of JBI, which collaborates with Wall Street companies and industries to invest in real estate in China.

"Tech did provide a unique opportunity not only for me, but for my brother, sister and also international students — a unique way to get high-

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

> > >TECHNOTES significant impacts on local, state and national economies. Plans for the restructuring grew out of consultations with Tech stakeholders, findings of the 2005 Georgia Manufacturing Survey and recommendations from the National Innovation Initiative co-chaired by President Wayne Clough.

"U.S. companies can no longer compete just by reducing costs and boosting efficiency," says Vice Provost Wayne Hodges, who heads the new organization. "Business is now global and companies must compete on the basis of innovation. To succeed in the future, companies must be able to develop and commercialize innovative products, processes and services ahead of their competition."

The manufacturing survey found that 18 percent of the state's manufacturers had lost business to international outsourcing. The survey also found that companies relying on innovation enjoyed larger sales margins, paid higher wages and had less to fear from outsourcing than did companies relying on other forms of competition.

Change of Drivers Bill Goodhew, IM 61, outgoing chairman of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association, passes the keys to the Ramblin'Wreck to incoming chair Janice Wittschiebe, who stepped into the driver's seat July 1 for the new fiscal year.

Wittschiebe, Arch 78, M Arch 80, is only the second woman to serve in the volunteer role as head of the alumni body. The late Shirley Mewborn, EE 56, filled the post in fiscal year 1990. A partner with Richard + Wittschiebe Architects of Atlanta, she is a member of the Georgia Tech Foundation board as well as the College of Architecture development council and program advisory board.

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

The Enterprise Innovation Institute is the first major reorganization of Tech's economic development and business assistance programs since the Economic Development Institute was formed in 1993. The new entity will provide services through four primary units organized by customer group: • Industry Services, which focuses on industrial customers around the state.

• Commercialization Services, which focuses on moving technology out of the laboratory and into the marketplace.

• Entrepreneur Services, which focuses on meeting the needs of emerging companies statewide.

• Community Policy and Research Services, which brings innovation to local and state government entities while conducting technology-based research and policy projects.

A fifth new unit, the Strategic Partners Office, assists companies seeking to develop Georgia Tech relationships, serving as a bridge to a broad range of campus-based resources and people.

TECHNOTES>>

Research Park Will Attract Innovators Technology Enterprise Park, a bioscience and technology research park affiliated with Georgia Tech and designed for emerging and established companies, is under construction on an 11-acre site adjacent to the Georgia Tech campus near the corner of North Avenue and Northside Drive.

Ground was broken in January for the first of four Technology Enterprise Park buildings, scheduled for completion in April 2007 and equipped with nearly 600,000 square feet of lab and office space. Its occupants will have access to worldrenowned research, biotech and conference facilities and the joint biomedical engineering department with Emory University on the Tech campus.

"Technology Enterprise Park will help retain and attract biotech and other technology companies to Midtown by providing a place for them to develop products and grow their business in a technology-rich environment that is anchored by Tech," says Robert K. Thompson, senior vice president for administration and finance at the Institute.

The $176 million technology center will include four five-story buildings.

The new park, Thompson says, "will reinforce Midtown's growing appeal to employers and employees as a technology innovation community in an attractive live-work-play-learn setting."

Tibet Pathway to Stratosphere Researchers from Georgia Tech, NASA and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, have found that thunderstorms over Tibet provide a main pathway for water vapor and chemicals to travel from the lower atmosphere, where human activity directly affects atmospheric composition, into the stratosphere, where the protective ozone layer resides.

The findings can help researchers understand future threats to the ozone layer, which shields Earth from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays. The analysis was performed using data from NASA's Aura spacecraft, combined with data from its Aqua and Tropical Rainfall Measuring Missions.

Rong Fu, associate professor in Tech's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, led the study, which also found that the same pathway is responsible for transporting carbon monoxide, an indicator of air pollution, into the upper atmosphere.

"There's almost no carbon monoxide production in Tibet, so it's widely believed that carbon monoxide is transported to the tropopause over Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent," Fu says.

The tropopause divides the lower atmosphere from the stratosphere, at an altitude of about 11 miles above Earth over the tropics and Tibet.

Photo: Neil B. McGahee

Pat Seward Hood, a 27-year-old mother of two young boys when her husband, Bill, died in Vietnam, is now a 65-year-old grandmother. She wiped away tears as Marine Lt. Col. Lance Maftett presented a folded flag. "I'm honored by this," Hood says. "And overwhelmed. It means so much to my children and grandchildren."

Requiem for a Vietnam War Hero Several hundred people attended a Memorial Day ceremony paying tribute to Marine Corps Maj. William H. Seward, a Georgia Tech alumnus who died in action in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.

A granite stone erected by the Atlanta Vietnam Veterans Business Association to honor Seward, Cls 59, marked the 20th year an Atlanta-area Vietnam casualty has been remembered.

Retired Marine Col. Jerry Gartman described the March 6,1968, event: He and Seward were dropping a special forces team into thick jungle near the Laotian border "when we were shot down. We tumbled through some trees into a gully."

Gartman tried to pull Seward from the wreckage but "he never responded." Gartman escaped just before the helicopter exploded and was rescued.

Seward, the great-great-grandson of >Âť Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

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>>>TECHNOTES

"Don't blame others for your failure to accomplish, You, in fact, are responsible for most of what happens in your life," said Bernie Marcus during commencement ceremonies at which Christina Kozycki (below), of LaGrange, Ga., received a bachelor's degree in biology,

William Seward, Abraham Lincoln's secretary of state during the Civil War, was initially listed as missing in action and later "killed in action, body not recovered."

In 1994, a joint U.S.-Vietnamese recovery operation located the remains of Seward and a crew member, but because not all of the remains could be specifically identified, a joint burial was held at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. Later, remains that matched Seward's DNA were returned to Georgia for burial.

From 1955 to 1957, Seward attended Georgia Tech, majoring in aeronautical engineering. He joined the Navy in 1959. He served two combat tours in Vietnam and was awarded the Purple Heart, 16 Air Medals, the Vietnam Service Medal and the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with palm and numerous citations and commendations.

Get Out and Change the World

Photo: Stanley Leary

Nearly 2,200 Georgia Tech graduates received degrees â&#x20AC;&#x201D; one-third in engineering â&#x20AC;&#x201D; at the 224th commencement ceremony May 6 at the Georgia Dome.

President Wayne Clough applauded graduates. "A degree from Georgia Tech means something special and says something about the person who earned it," he said.

The Home Depot cofounder Bernie Marcus told the graduates that resilience is a key to success. Marcus recalled how, after losing his job at age 49, he took a chance on starting a business. Despite a shaky start, The Home Depot became the largest homeimprovement chain in the world.

"Don't blame others for your failure to accomplish," he said.

"You, in fact, are responsible for most of what happens in your life."

Marcus encouraged the graduates to go out and change the world, but warned them, "If you shop at the other guy, I hope your toilets run forever."

Georgia Tech

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Management Chair Created A $1.5 million commitment from Ernest "Ernie" Scheller Jr., IM 52, chairman of Silberline Manufacturing Co., has established a chair in entrepreneurship and innovation in the College of Management.

The Ernest Scheller Jr. Chair in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Commercialization honors the work of Terry C. Blum, who stepped down as the business school dean July 1 to head Tech's new Interdisciplinary Institute for Leadership and Entrepreneurship.

Scheller is semiretired but continues to serve as chairman of Silberline, a global supplier of special effect and performance pigments that enhance the visual appeal of coatings, paints, inks, plastics and textiles. He joined the company, which his father founded, in 1953 and became president in 1964.

Today Scheller's daughter, Lisa Jane, is CEO, and the Pennsylvania-based company employs more than 600 people.

The key to the company's success has always been innovation, Scheller says. "Small companies have to find a niche in the marketplace; they have to be innovative in order to survive."

A member of the college's advisory board, he says Blum helped renew his interest in Tech. "The experience the second time around has been such a joy," says Scheller, who lives with his wife, Roberta, in Villanova, Pa., and Vail, Colo. "I get a lot of satisfaction and pleasure out of making this gift."

Combustion Lab Honors Zinn The combustion laboratory in Georgia Tech's Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering has been named for Ben T. Zinn, a Regents professor and the David S. Lewis Jr. chair in the school. Zinn is an expert in the dynamics of flow, combustion, propulsion and energy conversion systems.

"The contributions of Ben Zinn over a fourdecade career in combustion and propulsion research are internationally recognized for their influence on the field of aerospace propulsion," says Robert Loewy, chair of the School of Aerospace Engineering.

Zinn's current research focuses on low-emission combustors, improving liquid rockets and investigating the control of combustion processes in power generating gas turbines and jet engines.

Zinn started his career at Tech in 1965. He is also director of the NASA University Research Education Technology Institute Center for Aeropropulsion and Power based at Georgia Tech. The center's research is aimed at improving aircraft engines technologies.

Safeguarding Ports from Earthquakes A new five-year project led by Georgia Tech with $3.6 million in funding from the National Science Foundation aims to develop strategies to help safeguard U.S. ports from earthquake damage.

Western ports in Oakland, Los Angeles and Long Beach, Calif., and Seattle are at the greatest risk for earthquake damage, but ports in Charleston, S.C, and Savannah, Ga., also are at risk.

"Ports are a critical civil infrastructure system," says Glenn J. Rix, a professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the project director. "If a large portion of a major U.S. port was out of service for a year because of an earthquake,

there would be significant economic consequences."

In 1995, a magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck in Kobe, Japan. The port required $8.6 billion and two years to repair. By 2003, the port had fallen from the sixth largest in the world to 32nd and is unlikely to recover the lost business.

A key part of the project is to evaluate methods of preventing damage to wharves and cranes using large-scale tests, including a massive truck driven on a wharf to simulate an earthquake and evaluate the extent of ground shaking.

Researchers also will build a wharf at a structural testing facility to study its stability in the event of strong seismic activity. In addition, the team will investigate applying the same approach to managing risks from other natural hazards, including hurricanes.

"We learned an important lesson from the experience of Gulf Coast ports following Hurricane Katrina," Rix says. "The physical damage was minor compared to the impact of the displaced labor force on port operations, which emphasized the need to examine the entire port system." > Âť

Ben Zinn (right) works with students Phillip Zeller and Potter Wirfalt. A lab at Tech has been named for Zinn, a Regents professor and expert in the dynamics offlow, combustion, propulsion and energy conversion systems.

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

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> >>TECHNOTES

Students Explore Argentine Business

Wayne Book, a professor of fluid power and motion control, will channel his research into haptics — a study of the "feel" associated with operating a mechanical device such as an automobile or earthmoving equipment — into the Energy Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power.

In the background, graduate student Matthew Kontz (center) and research engineer James Huggins run the haptic backhoe.

After venturing to Argentina for a class trip, MBA student Richard Jucks has a much better idea of what it takes for a U.S. company to set up shop in another country.

"It really opened my eyes to how difficult it can be to expand internationally," says Jucks, who took the trip with his international operations practicum class over spring break.

The 12 students conducted market analyses for Georgia companies interested in doing business in Argentina. "We analyzed what they need to consider in terms of risk and how successful they would be if they started operations there," Jucks explains.

Jucks' interest in sustainable businesses led him to consult for ECR Biodiesel Atlanta. The company is at the forefront of eco-business, employing technology developed at Georgia Tech that can turn soybeans, animal fat and food waste into biodiesel fuel. ECR is considering expanding to Argentina because the country is a major producer of soybeans and beef.

The other class teams consulted for Carrier Web, a manufacturer of sophisticated radio frequency identification devices that is already doing business in Brazil; and Fry Reglet, which wants to sell more of its aluminum products in South America.

Practicum teacher Mark Ferguson, an assistant professor of operations management, received help recruiting companies for the course's

semester-long consulting project from the Georgia Tech Center for International Business Education and Research.

Grant Energizes Fluid Power Studies Reducing fuel consumption, developing devices for people with mobility impairments and designing rescue robots are just three of the goals of a new $21 million engineering research center that will include Georgia Tech.

The National Science Foundation announced a $15 million, five-year grant to support the new Engineering Research Center for Compact and Efficient Fluid Power. Industry partners will augment NSF funding. The center will be based at the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities campus.

Fluid-power technology encompasses most applications that use liquids or gases to transmit power in the form of pressurized fluid. The complexity of these systems ranges from a simple hydraulic jack used to lift a car when replacing a tire to sophisticated airplane flight control actuators that rely on high-pressure hydraulic systems.

Researchers at the center will study ways to use fluid power more efficiently in manufacturing, agriculture, construction and mining. Each 10 percent improvement in efficiency of current uses will save about $7 billion a year in U.S. energy costs.

Researchers will also work to develop hydraulic hybrid passenger cars that are less expensive and more efficient than today's electric hybrids. A10 percent improvement in efficiency in U.S. passenger car energy use will save about $10 billion a year.

Georgia Tech's input includes: • A project to minimize leakage by understanding the interactions among fluids, metals and sealing materials.

Studying ways to reduce the noise of fluid power, one of the primary deterrents to its use in the applications of the future.

Improving the human interface to hydraulic and pneumatic machines; more easily controlled machines can reduce training and task time and minimize errors, GT

SEPT.

SAVE THE DATE!

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5:30 to 8 p.m. â&#x20AC;˘ Tech Tower lawn Kick off the Georgia Tech football season by joining fellow alumni and friends at Tech Tower lawn for a pregame celebration. Enjoy food, entertainment, photos with the Wreck and a beer tent before cheering on the Yellow Jackets as they take on the Fighting Irish.

Mark your calendars for these upcoming events presented by your Georgia Tech Alumni Association

OCT.

6-7

Family Weekend

Whether you have a student currently enrolled at Tech or a son or daughter considering Tech, join our Georgia Tech family of students, staff and faculty for a weekend that will include something for everyone. Enjoy stimulating seminars, bus tours of campus, college receptions, Family Weekend Festival, movie on the lawn and a pregame tailgate before the Yellow Jackets take on the Maryland Terrapins.

For more information, please visit www.gtalumni.org/familyweekend

Register today at www.gtalumni.org/ndtailgate

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OCT. Clemson Bus Trip

Have tickets to the Clemson football game this fall?

Know how you are getting to the game? No? Then leave the driving to us! It is time to hit the road this fall and cheer the Yellow Jackets on to victory. The bus trip includes round-trip transportation, beer, wine, soda, snacks and a meal.

Registration this fall.

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Georgia Tech vs. Notre Dame Tailgate

26-28 Homecoming 2006

Mark your calendars for a weekend full of activities, including fascinating seminars, President Clough's State of the Institute address, Buzz Bash, a pregame tailgate on the Tech Tower lawn and the football game against the Miami Hurricanes. Classes of 1981, 1966 and 1956 will also celebrate their 25th, 40th and 50th reunions. Don't miss this opportunity to revisit campus and reconnect with friends.

For more information, please visit www.gtalumni.org/homecoming

NOV. UGA Bus Trip Have tickets to the UGA football game? Know how you are getting to the game this fall? No? Then leave the driving to us! It is time to hit the road and cheer the Yellow Jackets on to victory.

The bus trip includes round-trip transportation, beer, wine, soda, snacks and a meal.

Registration this fall.

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Georgia Tech Alumni Association

The NCAA championship continues to elude the Georgia Tech golf team, but the Jackets don't have to win a national title to earn top billing.

By Kimberly Link-Wills Photography: Christopher Gooley

0 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

senior writer for Golftoeek penned a column earlier this year poking fun of a headline in his own _ • publication's online edition that read: "Georgia Tech Stuns OSU in Hawaii."

The Web article laid out the details of the Georgia Tech golf team's tournament win at the Hawaii-Hilo Intercollegiate, where the Yellow Jackets beat second-place Oklahoma State by 14 strokes in early February.

Ron Balicki's Golfiueek magazine column later that month carried the headline: "Buzz-worthy Georgia Tech's success no shocker."

"The way I see it, the bottom line here is that, certainly since the dawn of the new millennium, the Yellow Jackets have not stunned anyone," Balicki wrote. "For the most part, it's pretty much the exact opposite.

Teams beating Georgia Tech are the stunners; Tech beating other teams is about as commonplace as the state's peaches and sweet Vidalia onions."

The fact is the Georgia Tech golf team wins — a lot. About the only trophy Tech hasn't gotten its hands on is the NCAA championship cup.

Although that prize has remained elusive, Georgia Tech's long list of tournament wins and ACC championships, the academic and athletic achievements of its players and the development of a top-notch practice facility in Midtown Atlanta have made the Institute the No. 1 university for golf in the nation. »>

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Players recruited

by Bruce Heppler come with high expectations — a feeling that reflects the coach's own standards. "High expectations and high standards are part of the deal"

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

Golfweek last October rated Tech's program the best in the country based on performance figures compiled over a six-year period. Last August, Golf Digest also ranked the Georgia Tech program at the top of its chart based on such factors as performance, academic stature, climate, coaching and facilities.

Both magazines acknowledged that the golf team has come up just short of winning the NCAA championship three times with runner-up finishes in 2005,2002 and 2000. But since its first in 1985, the team has won nine ACC championships — including the latest, a cochampionship with North Carolina in April. Tech pulled out a four-peat in 1991,1992,1993 and 1994 and also won in 1999, 2001 and 2002.

Golf Digest rated Tech No. 1 in its "Golf First" category. "These schools provide the best facilities and competition and are training grounds for future pros. Golf performance was 60 percent of the final index, coach /facilities 20 percent and academics and climate 10 percent each," the magazine said.

"Although Atlanta is a golf-rich city, there are few options for golfers downtown," the article continued.

"Coach Bruce Heppler sought donations to build an eight-acre, 320-yard-long, Tom Fazio-designed, teamonly facility on campus. It's one of many reasons Tech is Golf Digest's No. 1-ranked college for golf."

One of the first things Heppler saw — or rather didn't see — when he came to Tech in 1995 was a cam-

pus golf course. "If you look at the ACC and the SEC, everybody has one — except Tech and Vanderbilt. For years they had just called around and tried to find places for the kids to play, which can be a little bit difficult to do, especially on weekends," he says.

"We ended up being able to purchase a corporate membership at the Golf Club of Georgia in Alpharetta and at East Lake. That was a big deal for us recruiting wise. Then I found 10 acres over on 14th Street right next to the softball field. The Foundation owned the property and I went and begged to use it. We got the practice facility nine years ago."

Heppler says the magazines' rankings have helped him in the recruiting arena as he seeks out the best high school golfers across the country.

"This helps get you in the door and get you an audience," he says. Georgia Tech's national standing makes it possible for Heppler to recruit West Coast players like Cameron Tringale, who came to Atlanta from Laguna Niguel, Calif. "The school sells so well nationally that you have the ability to do that."

On a dreary day outside Cleveland, Tech's Roberto Castro tees off into the gray sky during the NCAA regional tournament. The Jackets overcame a poor start to finish third and advance to the national competition in Oregon.

Castro (also pictured on the previous page), an industrial engineering major and a three-time Ail-American, was named a first team Academic All-American in June.

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ut what really sells young men on golfing at Tech is a visit to Atlanta to see for themselves what the Institute's academic and athletic programs have to offer. Players come with high expectations. Coach Heppler says he has high standards himself. "High expectations and high standards are part of the deal."

The team had high expectations going in to the NCAA regionals in May at the Sand Ridge Golf Club outside Cleveland. Heppler says the golfers

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Continued on page 36

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

On Course Golf coach Bruce Heppler's drive to win takes him across the country to bring top talent to Tech

CC Coach of the Year for the fourth time, Bruce Heppler has a knack for finding high school golfers with that special something. His first recruit off the tee at Tech was Matt Kuchar. He won the U.S. Amateur as a Georgia Tech freshman.

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Heppler says he is "no fun at all" during tournaments — and his players know it. "They know we're there spending hard-earned donor dollars and we're there to be successful. They understand what the point is. The point is to win.

In the coach's eyes, it's not just a terrific backswing or an excellent short putt that makes one golfer stand apart from another.

It's how he treats his mother.

"Sometimes it is difficult to stand there and watch them do things and fail and you can't do anything about it. When you get to a tournament, there's no substituting. We take five guys and if a guy has a bad week," Heppler says, ending the statement with a shrug of the shoulders.

"I'll watch a boy say something offhanded to his dad or his mom, treat them like it's all about him, and I'll walk the other way," Heppler says. "This woman has been cleaning his dirty underwear and feeding him for 19 years and that's the way he treats his mom?

He's not going to treat me any better than that. I don't need to deal with it. I'm looking for good people — good students, good attitude and character — and obviously they have to be talented."

Heppler is a straight shooter during the recruiting process. "You sell the school for what it is. 'It's a wonderful academic situation and you're going to have to work your fanny off. It's going to be very, very difficult for you to get out on the road.' If a guy comes, he's heard the reality of it rather than all the gravy," For Heppler, now in his 11th year at Tech, the icing on the cake has been the team-oriented players he has recruited.

"Matt Kuchar and Bryce Molder were the two best players in college for two years here together and not for one minute did either one of them begrudge the other. I've never seen anything like it," he says.

"I would actually watch Matt at times after the Amateur when reporters would come up and want to talk to him. He'd go, 'Fellas, that was a year and a half ago, That boy over there is the best player on the team. You need to go talk to him.' That's pretty rare."

The coach describes himself as a methodical man, one who doesn't like to make mistakes. "Golf is about mistakes," he acknowledges.

"You can have some impact between rounds with attitude and those kinds of things. For the most part, it's up to them. For me, that's difficult because I like to be in control of things. It's a job where a lot of what goes on you're not in control of."

Heppler says he is an anxious man — and that's a good thing.

"Nervous means you're afraid you're going to fail. Anxious means something good might happen," Heppler says. "I try to convince the guys that those butterflies are not a feeling of weakness. It's a good thing. That means that you've got a chance to win. When I'm not anxious, that's not a good thing. That means I've evaluated the situation and we don't stand a chance," Although he keeps his eyes on the prize, Heppler admits that it is hard for him to tell players they have not made the cut to travel with the team.

"It's brutal. They're good kids, they make good grades, they practice all day long every day. It's the worst part of the job," Heppler says. "In football, they all dress for Saturday. In basketball, everybody dresses and if you're up by 35, the guy at the end is going to go in and everybody's going to cheer. My guys don't go in. You can have a year where your sixth

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

guy never puts a uniform on. It can be very discouraging."

The coach crunches the numbers. "I'm a CPA," he confesses before explaining that he limits his team to eight players — about half the size of most college golf squads — to help his lower-ranked boys feel like they still have a chance to compete.

"If you're number 15 or 16, that road to the airport probably looks straight uphill. If you're seven or eight, you know, 'If I keep working, I've only got to get through two or three guys.' They feel like they still have a chance."

In the presence of his players, Heppler doesn't discuss their chances of making it on the pro circuit. Out of range, he concedes, "70 or 80 percent of your guys are never going to get there."

Heppler doesn't believe in bursting his players' bubbles when it comes to their dreams of playing on the PGA Tour. "You want the dream to continue. That's why the kid who doesn't play for two years keeps

working. That's why he spends six, seven and eight hours a day at it.

"The reality is most of them are going to have to get a job. You make sure they walk out with a degree so that no matter what happens they're taken care of."

No matter how badly Heppler wants to win, he instructs his players to put academics in front of the ball.

"I managed to convince Bryce to lead the way and he began to make the dean's list every semester and that just changed the whole culture. Now most guys feel if they don't make the dean's list they've let their teammates down. Our cumulative grade point average is almost 3.4.

"They get mentally and physically stronger because of the work they do both on the course and in the classroom," Heppler says. "It's to bed, to class, to workout, to the golf course and back to your room."

Heppler hasn't taken his own golf game seriously since he began coaching 18 years ago.

Coach Bruce Heppler encourages Cameron Tringale, one of the team's hottest players in only his first year. He has been selected to play in the inaugural USA China Friendship Cup July 27-29 in his native California.

"I don't play at all. I don't have time for it, I'm on the road 23 weeks a year, I've got a 6and a 10-year-old. The last thing I want to do is go to a golf course and hit balls. It takes hours to be good at something. I don't want to play badly. I don't need any more stress in my life."

The golf season is long â&#x20AC;&#x201D; from August to November and January to June. Heppler goes in search of new players from June to August. "It does take a toll on my kids," says Heppler. "You get the question, 'When are you going again?' It's tough."

From time to time, he is able to squeeze in a round of putt-putt with his children.

"I love miniature golf," he says, his face brightening. "I can do that for fun. I let the kids win. I do no better than third in our family foursome."

Heppler did play competitively on the Dixie Junior College golf team in St. George, Utah. "I went on a [Latter-day Saints] mission and intended to play again after that. The school dropped the golf program and that was really the end of it for me. I went on to Brigham Young and it was time for me to get on with life. I made a decision not to play competitively anymore."

He says he became an accountant by default. "I figured that the people who made the most money in life were doctors, lawyers and accountants. I was good with numbers.

"After graduation, I went to work for a CPA firm. I hated it.

My wife thought she was going to marry a rich accountant. The next thing she knows she's loadng up a Ryder truck and driving to Massachusetts."

Heppler had made a 180-degree career turn. He had been accepted into the graduate sports management program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He had

decided to become an athletics director.

When the Amherst College golf coach was looking for someone to lead the men's and women's teams while he took a yearlong sabbatical in 1987, Heppler jumped at the opportunity to get back on the greens.

"It was $1,000 a team and we were starving," he says, The experience turned out to be far better than Heppler imagined. "It was awesome," he says, and helped him realize he didn't want to sit in an office as an athletics administrator. He wanted to be around young players and help mold them into better golfers and better human beings.

He went on to work in the golf program at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas before taking a job at Oklahoma State, where he was the assistant golf coach from 1991 to 1995, the year the team won the NCAA championship title.

"I was just minding my own business working golf camp when Homer Rice called and asked if I could come to Atlanta and meet him," Heppler says. "I was in his office less than five minutes and he offered me the job."

Stunned, Heppler listened as Rice told him the glowing recommendations he had received. "It's your job," the athletics director said, "and I'm going to spend the next 48 hours trying to convince you to come here."

The convincing process included a dinner with some of Tech's biggest golf boosters.

"One of them was Charlie Yates. He leaned over to me and said, 'Hey Coach, you know what my member number at Augusta National is?' I said, 'No, Mr. Yates, I certainly do not.' 'It's number three. If you'll come down here and coach my boys, I'll take you over there with the team every year.'

"That's when I started to realize there had been a lot that had gone on here," Heppler says. "But the tradition really hit me when Matt won the Amateur right after his freshman year."

Some of Tech's greatest sports legends were on hand when Kuchar brought the Havemeyer trophy into the Edge Athletics Center after bringing home the 1997 title.

"Dan and Charlie Yates started to cry," Heppler remembers. "It had been 70 years since Bobby Jones had brought that trophy back to Atlanta. All of a sudden I started to understand what amateur golf meant to those people who knew Mr. Jones." â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Kimberly Link-\

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

battled bad weather and got off to a slow start but played magnificently on the last 36 holes, finishing the tournament tied for third with Texas A&M. Tringale tied for fourth place individually.

The third-place finish was good enough to send Tech to the NCAA championship in Oregon, where the team, unfortunately, missed the cut to play in the final round. Tringale did compete in the finals and finished tied for eighth place.

During the 2005-06 golf season, Tech won the Jerry Pate National Intercollegiate in Birmingham, Ala., in October in addition to the Hilo Intercollegiate, where Tringale also finished on top.

Tringale is the fifth Tech golfer to win the ACC individual title, but the only one to capture it as a freshman.

G

eorgia Tech has produced three national champions — Troy Matteson in 2002, Charlie Yates in 1934 and Watts Gunn in 1927. Matteson's 2002 win was his fourth of the season and tied the school record of David Duval, Cls 93. Matteson also was named the Arnold Palmer National Player of the Year and earned first-team All-America honors.

Matteson, CE 03, won the Nationwide Tour money title in 2005 with earnings just under $500,000 and netted a 2006 PGA Tour card. Thus far on the tour this year, he has won about $180,000. As of early June, former teammate Nicholas Thompson, Mgt 05, had earned $65,770 on the PGA and Nationwide tours.

While at Tech, Thompson's credits included a spot on the 2005 Walker Cup team. He was named to the ACC Academic Honor Roll four times and All-ACC three times and twice was selected as a Golf Coaches Association of America All-America Scholar.

"Nick's had a tough first year. Troy's had an OK year," Heppler says. v "They're learning. It's a very tough field the first time out there, but they're doing OK." Both were doing better on the PGA Tour than Matt Kuchar, Mgt 00, who, as of mid-May, had only earned $10,017.

"He's trying to get his game going again," says Heppler, who explains how Kuchar at least temporarily lost his focus. "He met a gal three years ago." The coach says Kuchar relaxed his practice schedule to court — and marry — Sybi Parker, Mgt 99, a former Tech tennis player.

"I respect him for doing that. This is going to be his partner for life. Now he has to go back to work. I think for the last eight or nine months Matt has worked as hard as he has in his life. There are flashes

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

Golf Digest ranked Tech sixth in its "Top Colleges on Tour" article and cited the multimillion dollar success stories of Institute alumni who have turned pro, including such names as Duval, Cink and Mize.

Kevin Larsen (right) tees off (luring the U.S. Collegiate Championship in Alpharetta, Ga., in April while Taylor Hall (below) heads for the green. Larsen and teammate Roberto Castro were both selected to compete on the sixman U.S. Palmer Cup team in Scotland in late June.

here and there where things are getting better — he'll be fine," Heppler says.

The coach was right. On May 21, Kuchar won the Nationwide Tour's Henrico County Open in Virginia.

His tournament winnings were $81,000. It was Kuchar's first win since the PGA Tour's 2002 Honda Classic.

The win propelled Kuchar up the Nationwide Tour money leader board from 86th to the top 15, with 2006 winnings of $102,824. By June, his PGA Tour winnings had increased to $30,297.

The coach has a soft spot for Kuchar. "Matt was the first guy who committed to me. He said, 'I'm doing this chart, from facilities to academics, all these categories.' I said, 'How'd I do?' He said, 'You didn't win.

Duke did. But I'm coming anyway' That was a big start for us," Heppler says.

Currently, the Tech alum making the most money on the PGA Tour is Stewart Cink, Mgt 95, with reported earnings thus far this year of $978,168.

Heppler says Cink remains supportive of Tech's golf program. "To give you an idea about Stewart, he called me in January. He was headed to play in the Sony. Nick Thompson had just gotten his card through the qualifying school and Troy Matteson had just gotten his card through the Nationwide Tour. Stewart called me as he was headed out the door to the airport and goes, 'Hey Coach, I need Troy's cell and I need Nick's cell. I'm gonna go to Hawaii and make sure I play some practice rounds with them.' He's super."

Cink also is married to a Tech alumna. Wife Lisa earned an applied biology degree in 1995.

Duval, another Jacket turned PGA champion, has "come back and played with the guys on a Saturday at the golf club on his own dime," Heppler says.

Duval's tour earnings for 2006 to date add up to $276,397, but his career PGA Tour winnings are pegged at more than $16 million. The 1995 PGA Tour Rookie of the Year, Duval has won 13 major tournaments.

L

ast September Golf Digest ranked Tech sixth in its "Top Colleges on Tour" article. It cited pros Cink; Michael Clark II, Cls 91; Duval; Tripp Isenhour, Mgt 90; Kuchar; and Larry Mize, Cls 78, who has earned $89,660 this year but has garnered more than $7.2 million in his 23 years on the PGA Tour. Mize also has a green jacket — he won the 1987 Masters Tournament.

Clark now plays on the Champions Tour, although he is not listed on the 2006 money board. His PGA Tour claim to fame was winning the John Deere Classic in 2000, the same year he was named Rookie of the Year.

His career earnings on both tours have been estimated at $2.5 million. >»

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

Isenhour, as of early June, was sitting atop the 2006 Nationwide Tour money leaders list with $261,777. His career PGA winnings are reported as $711,965.

Not mentioned in the magazine are Tech pros Bryce Molder, Mgt 01; Matt Weibring, Mgt 02; and Kris Mikkelsen, Mgt 02.

Molder's best PGA Tour finish was in 2001, when he finished third at the Reno-Tahoe Open. Lately he has been playing primarily on the Nationwide Tour. The two-time Walker Cup team member has earned more than $800,000 playing professional golf.

To date, Weibring, All-ACC and a third-team AilAmerican in 2002, has had only one PGA Tour start â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the 2004 Buick Championship, at which he tied for 58th and won $9,324. He played on the Nationwide Tour in 2005, when he earned more than $100,000, and this year, winning $44,664 thus far.

Mikkelsen has played on the Canadian Professional Golf Tour since 2003. He finished 26th on the money list in 2003 and '04.

W

hen Heppler came on board at Tech in 1995, "there was a lot going on. David Duval and Stewart Cink had done what they had done and Puggy [Blackmon, Tech's golf coach for 13 years] had really turned the thing from ashes into a very competitive national program. I knew the first year would be critical with Cink walking out the door. I knew if we could sell what those guys had done, we'd be OK at recruiting.

"Our first class was very, very good. It produced Matt Kuchar and all of his fame. In the second year, we were able to get Bryce Molder from Arkansas. The program just took off with those guys. It has been going pretty well ever since." GT

e^R

\y

y

Georgia T e c h Alumr

39

Georgia Tech'i wins NCAA individual championship title; Jones wins British Open

1928 Gunn wins Southern Amateur and graduates from Tech

1930

1947

Jones wins the Grand Slam: U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, British Open and British Amateur

Barnes wins Southern

1918

Tech student Charlie Yates wins Georgia Amateur; Jones is elected president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association

enrolls at Georgia Tech. He had

1932

1934

1922 cal engineering degree; Adair

Yates wins Western Amateur and

wins Georgia Amateur

graduates from Georgia Tech with a general science

1924 Jones wins the first of five U.S. Amateur titles

1926 Jones wins the U.S. and British opens; he and Gunn compete on the U.S. Walker Cup team

degree

#

1964 1952 Yates elected president of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association

1935

1923

1950 Yates named secretary of Augusta National Golf Club

Yates wins NCAA individual championship title

Jones graduates with a mechani-

Jones wins U.S. Open; Adair wins Southern Amateur; Watts Gunn wins Georgia Amateur

1949 Amateur

Yates again wins Georgia Amateur

1921 Perry Adair wins Southern Amateur

Albert Swann, IM 49, wins Southeastern Conference championship

Barnes wins Southern

won the Southern Amateur at 15 and the Georgia Amateur at 14

Amateur

1948

1931

Bobby Jones (above) at age 16

1946 Barnes wins Southeastern PGA Open and Southeastern Amateur

1971 1953 Yates captains the Walker Cup team

1938

1958 Jones inducted into Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

1959 Yates inducted into Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

1960 Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

Barnes wins Southern Amateur

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

Jones dies; to this day, fans continue to leave golf balls on his grave at Oakland Cemetery in

1973 Adair inducted into Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

1980 Yates presented Bob Jones Award by the U.S. Golf Association

Barnes inducted into Georgia

1941

1927

Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

Atlanta

Yates wins British Amateur and plays on U.S. Walker Cup team; Tommy Barnes wins Southern Intercollegiate and graduates from Tech with an industrial management degree

Tech golfer Gunn (right)

Swann inducted into Georgia

1961 Gunn inducted into Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

1985 Tech wins its first ACC championship and plays in its first NCAA tournament; Bob McDonnell, MgtSci 86, MS Mgt 91, wins ACC championship and Southern

ints of the Greens Intercollegiate; Bill McDonald, Mgt 89, wins John Ryan Memorial, Gator Bowl Intercollegiate and Iron Duke Classic; Nacho Gervas, Mgt 87, wins MacGregor Intercollegiate; Dan Yates, IM 41, inducted into Georgia Tech Athletics Hall of Fame

1986 McDonnell wins Miami National Collegiate; McDonald wins Iron Duke Classic

1987 Larry Mize, CIs 78, wins Masters Tournament; Jay Nichols, Mgt 87, wins ImperiaLakes Classic; Charlie Rymer, Mgt 91, wins Furman Invitational

1988 Rymer wins ImperiaLakes Classic, Tournament of Cham-

Kuchar and Carlton Forrester, Mgt 00, tie to win Waikoloa Intercollegiate; Molder wins Golf Digest Intercollegiate and Carpet Capital Collegiate and is ACC Player of the Year; Kuchar and Molder play on Walker Cup team

into the Georgia Golf Hall of Fame are Tech alumni: Barnes, Gunn, Jones and Yates

1990 Rymer wins Southern Intercollegiate

1991

2000

NCAA East Regional champions; David Duval, CIs 93, wins Furman Intercollegiate and ACC championship and plays on Walker Cup team; Chan Reeves, Mgt 92, wins NCAA East Regional individual title

Tech is runner-up in NCAA championship; Molder is Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year

1993 Tech is runner-up in NCAA championship; Duval wins ACC championship, Cavalier Classic and

1992 Duval wins John Hancock AllAmerican and Cavalier Classic; Jimmy Johnston wins NCAA East Regional individual title; Duval and Stewart Cink, Mgt 95, tie to win the UNLV Rebel Classic

Perry Maxwell Collegiate; Jason Walters, Mgt 96, wins Ping

2002

Arizona Collegiate

NCAA East Regional champions;

1994 Mike Rantanen, Mgt 95, wins NCAA Golf Challenge and ACC championship; Gunn dies at age

1995 Four of the original 13 inductees

Tech is runner-up in NCAA championship; Troy Matteson, CE 03, is national collegiate champion

2003

pions and Southern Collegiate

1989

2001 Duval wins British Open; Molder again is Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year and ACC Player of the Year

Matteson wins NCAA regional individual title

Cink wins P\ng/Golfweek Preview Invitational, NCAA Golf Chal-

2004

lenge, Carpet Capital Collegiate

Three of the five starters —

and Perry Maxwell Collegiate

Roberto Castro, Chan Song and Nicholas Thompson, Mgt 05 —

1997 Matt Kuchar, Mgt 00, wins U.S. Amateur

earn All-American honors from the Golf Coaches Association

2005

1998 Coach Heppler says pro Stewart Cink, Mgt 95, continues to be supportive of the Tech golf program.

NCAA East Regional champions; Kuchar wins individual title and Puerto Rico Golf Classic and is ACC Player of the Year and Fred Haskins National Player of the Year; Bryce Molder, Mgt 01, wins Carpet Capital Collegiate and is Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year

Tech is runner-up in NCAA championship; All-American Thompson competes on Walker Cup team; Charlie Yates dies at age 92

2006 Tech is ACC co-champion; players Roberto Castro and Kevin Larsen are named to U.S. Palmer

1999 NCAA East Regional champions;

Cup team; Castro, Larsen and Cameron Tringale are AII-ACC G T

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

41

OLYMP:

G e o M a - T a f l S ^ n i Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

LEGACY Georgia Tech's innovative use of virtual reality helyed Atlanta win its hid to host the 1996 Summer Games. Neither the city nor the Institute have ever been the same.

I

t was the summer that changed Atlanta forever. The 1996 Centennial Summer Olympic Games opened the world's eyes to Atlanta as an international city and won Georgia Tech acclaim for engineering a technology-friendly event and serving as the Home of the Olympic Village. Georgia Tech's involvement in championing the Olympic Games for Atlanta was intensely supportive and provided a level of razzle-dazzle technological fun that overcame the stuffy reserve displayed by some members of the International Olympic Committee.

From the outset, the Olympic Games seemed not destined for Atlanta.

When lawyer Billy Payne, president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, began his quest for the bid in 1987, he acknowledged that he didn't even know which games were next.

Payne found out quick enough.

It would be the 100th anniversary and there was a universal swell of support for the bid to go to Athens, Greece, birthplace of both the ancient and modern Olympic Games. It was initially considered a cinch.

Atlanta appeared even more of a long shot, Payne learned, because it was highly unlikely that the IOC would return the Olympics to the United States so soon after the Winter Games of Lake Placid in 1980 and Summer Games in Los Angeles in 1984. Then there was the harsh reality that no city had ever won the right to stage the games on its first bid attempt.

And, the fact was, Atlanta was unknown to the international sports world. Atlanta's strongest international recognition came from its mayor, Andrew Young, former ambassador to the United Nations.

At a meeting of the IOC in San Juan, Puerto Rico, in 1989, Payne had to convince the >Âť Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

43

members that Atlanta was the best candidate for the Olympic Games. Payne asked Georgia Tech to design an architectural scale model of Atlanta as the host city. Tech President John P. Crecine suggested something else. Atlanta should show the IOC the future — virtual reality.

The term "virtual reality" was virtually unknown in 1989, when Tech began a fantastic effort to help Payne's committee win the high-stakes election.

More than 40 Tech computer scientists worked against a pressing deadline to

create a realistic three-dimensional tour through Olympic venues that had not even been designed.

The project was not completed until the last possible minute, but Tech created a 7-foot-tall, three-screen, 3-D interactive video and laser disc projection system that made its debut at the San Juan, Puerto Rico, meeting. It was amazing.

Members of the committee delighted in using the trackball and touch screen to view a montage of animation, computer graphics, aerial photography,

video and satellite topographical photographs to depict Atlanta during the Centennial Summer Olympic Games.

The presentation dazzled IOC members. When all was said and done in the fall of 1990, Atlanta got the bid.

Businessman A. Russell Chandler, IE 67, volunteer head of the Olympic Village preparation effort since 1988, said after Atlanta won, "The strength of our bid was shown in the technical competence behind it and what was done by other volunteers on this campus.

"The interactive video really distin-

For the Olympics, residence halls were huilt and facilities — like the dining hall and coliseum — were renovated. An aquatic center powered by solar panels demonstrated Tech's commitment to tomorrow's technology. Institute researchers were involved in many Olympicrelated projects —from tracking Atlanta's traffic flow during the Games to researching the biomechanics of platform diving and even a DanceTechnology project that combined art and technology. Mark Mobley, ME 83, an engineer with the Tennessee Valley Authority, modeled a 3,000-foot section of the upper Ocoee River to create the white-water course. The Ocoee became the first natural river used for Olympic Games competition.

guished Atlanta as the technological leader and as a city capable of managing something of the magnitude of an Olympics," Chandler added.

Payne, now the secretary of the Augusta National Golf Club, observed at the time, "Russ fell in love with the Olympics and has been, from the beginning, kind of the heart and soul of our village."

Chandler would in fact later serve as mayor of the Olympic Village, hosting at various times President Bill Clinton and a litanv of international

dignitaries. Young and Atlanta builder Robert Holder became co-chairs of the Games.

A group of Tech professors and graduate students worked with mechanical engineering professor Sam Shelton to design the 3.5-pound Olympic torch carried throughout Greece and across the United States.

The tangible rewards brought Tech a $108 million housing project to construct seven new residence halls, a $21 million aquatic center that has evolved into the Campus Recreation Center and

a $12 million renovation of Alexander Memorial Coliseum, which served as the boxing venue. Another permanent fixture is the Olympic Plaza with its landmark Kessler Campanile, funded by and named for Richard Kessler, IE 68, MS IE 70.

"We will not be the same after 1996," said Wayne Clough, CE 63, MS CE 65, who became Tech's 10th president and first alumnus in that role in 1994. "Because of its Olympic legacy, Tech will be better prepared to enter the next century."

> >PACESETTERS

Memphis Merger A former Georgia Tech tennis player and Elvis Presley Enterprises have joined forces to ensure a decent living for Third World coffee farmers and brew a good cup of joe.

By Neil B. McGahee Photo: Lisa Buser

The Ugly Mug Coffee Co. of Memphis, Tenn., sold more than 100,000 pounds of organic coffee last year bought from Third World farmers under an agreement that provides them a decent living.

That caught the attention of another Memphis business, Elvis Presley Enterprises, which signed the Ugly Mug as the exclusive roaster of Elvis Coffee.

"It just seemed right for two Memphis originals to merge," Mark Ottinger, HTS 94, says.

"Elvis did so many humanitarian things during his life so we fit right in with their philosophy," Ottinger has always been

46

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

serving something â&#x20AC;&#x201D; tennis balls, sermons and now coffee.

As a Georgia Tech tennis player, he recorded 67 singles and 64 doubles victories while winning three ACC championships for No. 4 seeds.

"Tech tennis was rebuilding my first three years," he says. "But we caught fire my senior year. We beat North Carolina to win the NCAA regional championship and earned a berth in the national tournament. What a great way to go out."

But as much as Ottinger loved tennis, he realized his time as an athlete was over.

"I was moving in a different direction," he says. "I loved being an athlete and being part of a team, but I felt I was being called to go another way."

The way was west to Texas and the Dallas Theological Seminary, where he earned a master's degree in biblical studies, then joined the staff of the First Evangelical Church in Memphis as campus pastor at the University of Memphis.

Not long after his arrival, he noticed the students didn't have a place to just hang out.

"There weren't a lot of coffee shops like there is now but I knew

they were coming and I just wanted a cool place for them to go," he says.

The shop opened in 2002 with a name no one seems to remember. "I don't remember what we called it, but people started bringing in these awful looking coffee mugs and hanging them on the wall and the Ugly Mug Coffee Company was born," Ottinger says.

"I really love the coffee business," he says, "but soon after I got into it, I realized a lot of things about the business were disturbing, especially the way farmers were treated.

"They couldn't feed their families or educate their kids; often they had to grow illegal crops just to make a living," he says,

because we feel like it's our cause and the consumer shouldn't have to pay for that. Consumers just want good coffee."

Ottinger decided to leave the ministry and go into business with Tim Burleson, a Texas friend.

The partners went a step further joining Growers First, an organization that offers agricultural advice and supplies, loans to assist in lean times and community support.

"We decided to create a business selling 100 percent organically grown, fairly traded high-end coffee that would give something back to the coffeegrowing regions of the world," Ottinger says. "Ugly Mug pays almost double what other merchants might typically pay for similar quality coffee, We don't pass that price on to the consumer

"Nicaragua's coffee crop was wiped out last year by hurricanes," Ottinger says. "Without Growers First, many of the farmers would have had to go out of business."

Soon All Shook Up Blend, Jail House Rock, Burning Love Blend and Elvis decaf coffees will

be available in more than 1,500 grocery stores and through the Internet.

"We are expanding into new markets pretty heavily this year," says Ottinger. "We will be in the Atlanta market soon at Publix and Kroger and we signed a national licensing agreement for Ugly Mug Coffee stores."

Is this the next Starbucks?

"We're not trying to be the next anything," Ottinger says.

"We're looking to expand and go wherever it takes us. The more the business grows, the more we get to help families in coffee-growing regions." G T

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

O

From the stylish classics of yesterday the sleek and powerful modern towels of today, the Georgia Tech Auto Show had it all. There were no idle conversations among the more than 2,000 car lovers who came to ooh and ah.

By Neil B. McGahee Photographs: Gary Meek

ne theme for this year's Georgia Tech Auto Show could have been "what's old is new again/' but there was no denying the tantalizing bouquet of new car smell. The auto industry's latest models, many wearing logos of resurrected automotive legends — Miura, GTO, Charger, Challenger and Hemi — competed for eye time from the more than 2,000 people who filled the Instructional Center parking lot April 1.

The show, in its third and most successful year, was open to all Tech students, staff, faculty and alumni, says Sterling Skinner, event organizer and director of the instructional laboratory at the School of Mechanical Engineering.

"The word is getting out that we put on a really good show," Skinner says. "We had people come from as far as Wisconsin."

A crowd of young people gathered around John Brown, Phys 50, as he gently polished his beloved Studebakers — a 1957 Golden Hawk and a 1968 Avanti. Most of them had never heard of the brand that closed its doors in 1968.

He told them his love affair with Studebaker began when he was a Georgia Tech student in the 1940s.

"I came back to Tech on the GI Bill after World War II," he says. "I lived in a house off east Ponce de Leon and I would take the trolley to class. In 1948 there was a strike, so I was forced to stand on Ponce with my thumb sticking out."

He says he was given a lift in "this really interesting looking car" — a Studebaker — and he was hooked.

"After I graduated in 1950, the first thing I did was buy a used 1948 Champion and I drove a Studebaker until the company began to decline in 1966," Brown says.

Six Tech alumni — all engineers from DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors — drove a caravan of concept and show cars to Atlanta.

"Last year, we began inviting Tech graduates who work in the automotive industry to come down from Detroit," Skinner says. "I think it says a lot about the prominence the show is gaining."

DaimlerChrysler engineers Heidi Alexa, ME 01, and Brandon Dail, MS ECE 04, brought Dodge's very 1970s-looking Hemi Charger and the Ram V-10 pickup truck that set a world speed record for trucks last year.

The General Motors contingent, Nancy Evans, MS ME 89, and Tech intern Nathan Sumner, brought a prototype Saturn Vue Hybrid SUV and a 2006 Corvette C6. »> Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

49

How many auto shows have Ferrari and Ford designers who graduated from Georgia Tech in attendance? How many shows have both biodiesel and electric cars? Organizers "tried to make this interesting for everyone."

F

ord designers Huibert Mees, MS ME 89, and Jim Wallace, ME 94, showed the exotic Ford GT for which Mees designed the chassis, brakes, steering and suspension.

"Huibert Mees was phenomenal," Skinner says. "We wanted to give current students access to successful alumni that have made it big in the industry and he was more than happy just to sit by his car and talk. Tech students regard him as a celebrity, and as you know, there are not many celebrity engineers.

He talked to them about very technical things that engineering students love to discuss."

Franco Cimatti, ME 81, engineering concept manager at legendary Italian automaker Ferrari and featured speaker, brought examples of his work — a bright red Enzo, a 355, a P-40 and the just-introduced 612 Scaglietti.

"How many shows have Ferrari and Ford GT designers in attendance?"

Skinner asks rhetorically "How many biodiesel and electric cars do you see at other shows? We tried to make this interesting for everyone and I think we did."

Not all entries occupied a place on technology's cutting edge.

Preston Stevens, Arch 52, showed his beautifully restored 1952 Hudson Hornet.

"This car dominated early NASCAR competition," he says, patting the tan car gently. "It had a huge six-cylinder engine — more than 300 cubic inches — that could outrun anything of its day."

Chris Rockett, MatE 05, entered a car that predated him by 27 years.

"This is my dad's 1954 Corvette," he says. "He got it in 1981 — the year I was born — and so far, I've been able to drive it on and off the trailer. But someday, it will be mine." GT

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>>PACESETTERS

The Italian Job Franco Cimatti travels full circle to Ferrari headquarters

By Neil B. McGahee Photo: Gary Meek

Ferrari. The car is a legend. The job is a dream.

But alumnus Franco Cimatti traveled the world and found himself spinning wheels in his career before he returned home and found the dream.

"In Italy, Ferrari is on everyone's mind. The newspapers print racing results on the front page like the papers here report football or baseball," says Cimatti, ME 81, who was born in Modena, Italy, the original headquarters of the world-renowned automaker.

"When I was just a small boy, I remember my grandfather, Pasquale Bertone, would pack me into the front basket of his bicycle and pedal around a Ferrari test track near our home," Cimatti says.

Cimatti, concept design manager for Ferrari, returned to campus this spring as featured speaker at the Georgia Tech Auto Show and brought along some of his handiwork — several Ferraris worth more than $100,000 each.

Although young Franco liked the fast, sleek cars, his first love was motorcycles.

"Around junior high, I began to read motorcycle magazines," he says, "and I found drawings that showed how engines work.

Later I learned mechanical engineers did that and I said, 'That's what I want to do.'"

Cimatti's father worked as an agricultural engineer studying pesticide safety issues, a job that

52

carried him around the world.

The family moved often, from Modena to Bologna to Milan to Mexico and eventually to the United States.

"I was a student at the American School in Mexico when I first heard of Georgia Tech," Cimatti says. "Even though we moved again to Miami, I remembered that a friend's brother said Georgia Tech was one of the best engineering schools in the country.

After I graduated from Palmetto High in 1977, I applied and was accepted into the mechanical engineering program."

Cimatti graduated in 1981 and earned his master's from MIT a year later.

"My parents had moved to England so I joined them and began looking for work, but there were few engineering jobs available," he says.

Instead he worked as a substitute teacher at the American School in London.

"It wasn't what I wanted to do but I had been a teaching assistant at Tech plus I speak Spanish, German and Italian, so I became a math and foreign languages teacher," he says. "It paid the bills."

But the speed bug is hard to ignore and Cimatti continued to search for a job with ties to racing.

"I think I hit every racing team in England," he says.

"Williams, McLaren, Tyrrel, Brabham — you name a team

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

and I probably applied there."

Disappointed by the results of his job search, Cimatti began thinking about returning to Italy.

Lombardini, a small diesel engine manufacturer, offered him an engineering position. It wasn't racing, but it beat teaching, he says.

Eight months later, his career was interrupted by a compulsory one-year stint in the Italian military. Cimatti used the time to apply for positions with Italy's automakers — Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Ferrari.

"Fiat offered me a job in Turin in the engine testing department so I spent six months there learning production technology," he says.

But Ferrari answered his query as well.

"I had been applying to Ferrari since I was a junior at Tech," he says. "I was offered a position in the testing department where I would be working with a complete car, not just a piece of the car like shock absorbers or a braking system."

It was a dream come true — working for one of the world's premiere automobile companies in the land where he was born.

Cimatti's stature in the company grew quickly.

He was assigned to test shock absorber dampers on a 412, one of the few high-performance sedans ever made by Ferrari.

Next, Cimatti was assigned to evaluate the Testarossa, prob-

ably the most recognized of all Ferraris — think fast red car in "Miami Vice."

"That was my first experience with really high speed," he says. "The Testarossa can reach nearly 200 miles per hour and I felt like I was riding a cruise missile."

In 1989, he was named chief testing coordinator for two other legendary models — the 348 Spider and the Mondial.

"There were many things that had to be changed on the prototypes," he says. "We had to design side-mounted radiators on the 348 and change the Mondial's engine placement from transverse mounting to longitudinal."

In 1994, Cimatti was named concept design manager at Ferrari and given the task of creating the 612 Scaglietti, a four-seat, high-speed touring coupe.

"I had complete control over every aspect of the design," he says.

"This may be the best job in the world," he says. "Working at Ferrari is so exciting. People ask me what is my favorite project and I have to say 'the next one' because doing something new excites me. I'm able to work alone or in small teams rather than as a part of a big committee.

"A committee isn't always the most efficient way to work.

You can't play a violin with more than two hands." G T

Applying Economics

F

or more than 30 years, Thomas D. "Danny" Boston enforced an embargo in his mind on the subject of Vietnam. "A lot of guys dealt with the experience in different ways," says Boston, a Georgia Tech economics professor who returned from Vietnam with captain's bars and a Purple Heart.

"The way I dealt with it was to suppress the fact that I was even there. I just never thought about it, never talked about it. I wouldn't go to movies that dealt with it and I wouldn't read about itThen about four years ago Boston accepted an invitation from another Tech professor, Douglas Flamming, to speak to his history class about the war.

The lecture and interaction with students, says Boston, was cathartic.

"For the first time I was able to confront a lot of my experiences there, and a lot of the memories began to fall back in place. I'm comfortable with the experience now. I don't run from it and it doesn't bother me. It's just one of those natural parts of life.

"Philosophically and politically I was opposed to the Vietnam War even before I went over there," he adds, "and being there didn't change my attitude.

It was not the right thing to do for our country. But I did what I had been asked to do."

Boston entered the Army in 1968 with the goal of becoming an archi- > Âť

54

The field has changed since Danny Boston began teaching 30 years ago. The professor has changed too.

There was a time when he would not discuss his experiences in Vietnam.

By Gary Goettling Photography: Gary Meek

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

Danny'Boston (second from left) talks to his rest 'assistants. Selected for their diversity and commit are (left to right) Dannie Beamer, a Tech graduate now with Merrill Lynch on Wall Street; Joseph Christiani, a Harvard economics major working with Boston this

summer; Dcona DeClue, a Tech industrial engineering major planning to earn a PhD in economics; l.oubna Bouamane, a " Trench student working on a PhD in history at Tech; and Linje Boston, the professor's son, who has a bachelor's in statistics from Carnegie Mellon and a master's from the Univerm sity of Michigan and is considering a PhD in economics.

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 20Cm

tectural designer after completing his military obligation. He returned to civilian life three years later with a different interest â&#x20AC;&#x201D; economics and community economic development â&#x20AC;&#x201D; that was rooted in his youth.

G

rowing up in Jacksonville, Fla., during the 1950s and 1960s was an interesting and sometimes bizarre experience, he says. Like everywhere else in the South, Jacksonville was comprised of two legally separated societies, one black and one white. Every social and public institution operated within a complex legal framework that mandated separate accommodations based on race.

"As a black kid growing up there,

Boston uses grant money to hire research assistants who have an interest in pursuing a doctorate in economics or a career as an economist.

Boston (center) works on an economic report on the city of Atlanta with (left to right) Loubna Bouarnane, Joseph Christiani, Donnie Reamer, Linje Boston and ~)eona DeClue.

' \

Summer 2006

you weren't really aware that there were two large societies because 90 percent of your time was spent within the black community," Boston explains.

"It was only when you went outside that community, to go downtown or to look for a job, for example, that you really began to understand the limitations placed on you simply because of color."

One of the irrational examples of segregation that sticks in Boston's mind came about in the early '60s when restaurant curbside service became popular.

"Before, if you were black, you

couldn't go inside a restaurant to eat," he says. "Then when some places started offering curbside service, they wouldn't serve you outside. You had to go inside to eat."

Despite its irrationality and indignity, segregation had a plus side in that it fostered cohesion within the AfricanAmerican community, according to Boston.

"You had great, nurturing relationships," he says, "and part of that was the high premium put on education. In fact, education was viewed as the only viable option for having any kind of substantial professional career or lifestyle."

In-state options for college-bound black students were limited, Boston says, so he applied to West Virginia

State, a historically black institution that attracted many up-and-coming Floridians.

Besides pursuing architectural design, Boston was enrolled in the college's mandatory ROTC. Upon graduating, he expected to be commissioned into the engineering corps, but instead was assigned to the infantry.

Following paratrooper school and ranger school as the '60s came to a close, Boston found himself in Vietnam, where he commanded an infantry platoon and later a small reconnaissance platoon.

One day, Boston and his men were scouting an area they knew to be heavily booby-trapped.

"It was a terrible assignment because we knew we were going to run into some problems one way or another," he recalls. "Either we'd be ambushed or we'd run into booby > »

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Georgia Tech Alu mni Magazine • Summer 2006 3

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Black Enterprise Board of Economists and a member of Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin's Council of Economic Advisors. He formerly served as president of the National Economic Association and as editor of The Review of Black Political Economy. Boston is the

creator of the Gazelle Index, a quarterly survey of 350 CEOs of the nation's fastest-growing African-Americanowned businesses.

E ABOVE AND RIGHT; Boston, a member of Mayor Franklin's Council of Economic Advisors, meets with Renee Glover, director of the Atlanta Housing Authority, at Centennial Place near the Georgia Tech campus.

The beauty of his research is its comprehensiveness and precision, Instead of relying on representative samples, Boston aims to collect and process information on every individual in Atlanta public housing,

58

traps. It turned out both things happened."

Boston's severe wounds required six major operations and nearly a year of recuperation.

A

fter leaving the Army in 1971, Boston was looking for something meaningful to do with his life. He thought about the chasm in prosperity between black and white portions of Jacksonville and concluded that he "wanted to make a contribution to the community, and the best way of doing that was through economics," he says.

Boston enrolled at Cornell University, where he earned a master's and doctorate in economics in 1974 and 1976, respectively. He joined the faculty at Georgia Tech as an associate professor of economics in 1985 following teaching positions at Clark Atlanta University and Stanford.

Tn 1992, he served the U.S. Senate as senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Three years later, he was appointed full professor at Tech.

The author or editor of six books and a national and international consultant on the economic status of minorities and issues related to minority business and community development issues, Boston is a member of the

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

conomics has changed significantly since his teaching career began 30 years ago, Boston notes. Chief among the changes has been new information technology, particularly the Internet, which has given rise to the much-proclaimed globalization phenomenon. The Internet has also leveled the field for both consumers and businesses, broadening competition not only in the marketplace, but in the labor pool too, he says.

Boston, who loves running while listening to jazz on his iPod, is married to Catherine Ross, a professor at Tech's College of Architecture. They have two children: a son, Linje, who recently graduated from the University of Michigan with a master's in statistics, and a daughter, Shani, a junior at the University of Pennsylvania.

Among his recent activities is a project to collect and analyze specific quality-of-life data on individuals in each of the 19,000 Atlanta families that receive public housing assistance. The goal, he says, is to "follow those families on a yearly basis to find out what neighborhoods they're moving into, the types of jobs they're getting, their income and other measures to determine how different public housing policies affect them."

The beauty of his research is its comprehensiveness and precision.

Instead of relying on representative samples, Boston aims to collect and process information on every individual in Atlanta public housing. He has recently received a MacArthur Foundation grant to perform similar >Âť

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At work or at play, Boston has long been clear about his mission to "level the playing field for people who are otherwise disadvantaged... through the exploitation of information technology."

analysis for the Chicago Housing Authority, with an eye for developing a national prototype.

Another aspect of his research deals with the academic performance of children from public housing, Boston has identified seven Atlanta public schools where these students perform at or above the national average.

"I want to find out what is it about these schools that enables kids who are poor and challenged to do so well," he

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

says. "If we can get an answer to that, perhaps we can transfer whatever that answer is to other schools and really begin to make a huge difference."

I

t's the kind of practical application of economics that attracted Boston to the field in the first place â&#x20AC;&#x201D; a field that sometimes has been disparaged as the "dismal science."

Too often economics deserves its reputation because of the way it is

taught, Boston states. "Students take an economics course and wind up being bored because they see it as a bunch of graphs and abstract theories that have nothing to do with reality."

Boston himself might have fit into that category had it not been for his economics professor in undergraduate school. Allen Metz brought a practical dimension to the subject that Boston says has inspired his own approach to teaching.

"I show my students how various theories and principles in economics are derived from real-life situations and then attempt to explain those situations," he explains.

"The fundamental objective of economics should be to explain reality and how people interact in allocating resources. The more practical you can make it, the more excited people get about it, and they can see how it makes a difference in their lives." GT

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

61

> >PACESETTERS

City Energizer As Atlanta's commissioner of planning and community development, Steven Cover insists his staff look for "newer, better ways to do everything. Never stay satisfied."

By Karen Hill Photo: Caroline Joe

Steven Cover's daily grind is enough to make some people take two Excedrin and crawl under the bed.

Cover is commissioner of the planning and community development department for the city of Atlanta, overseeing 290 people working in five bureaus — code compliance, housing, buildings, planning and urban design.

"Whether you're building a fence or a shopping center, every bit of it comes through our department, start to finish," says Cover, who earned a bachelor's degree in architecture from Georgia Tech in 1978 and a joint master's degree in architecture and city planning in 1981.

"My approach to my staff is simple," Cover says. "I never want to hear my staff say, 'That's the way we've always done it.'

That is the wrong answer. I encourage my staff to look at newer, better ways to do everything, Never stay satisfied with what you are doing."

One massive item on Cover's desk is the Beltline project, which would use a 22mile loop of old railroad track surrounding the city as the backbone of a trolley system that would connect 20 communities and serve as a backdrop for public art.

"For more than 100 years, those tracks divided and segregated communities — by race, by income, by you name it — and now we're looking at how

62

this project will reunite them," Cover says. "It's a wonderful urban design and transportation project. I don't think there's anything like this anywhere in the world."

Construction of the Beltline project could begin in three years.

It would take 25 years to complete, he says.

Other big projects in Cover's in-box deal with a projected population boom. "There's a major movement now to move back into the city, unlike anything we've seen since the 1950s and 1960s, when the population leveled off and began to decline," Cover says.

He is concerned that newcomers with more cash for housing will push out the city's poorer residents. Cover plans to ask the city council to consider incentives to encourage developers to build affordable housing within the city of Atlanta.

Beyond that, Cover is looking at other issues such as water supply and global warming that could determine how Atlanta will look 100 years from now.

Cover first saw Georgia Tech when he and his parents traveled from rural Maryland to visit the campus in 1974.

"I just fell in love with Georgia Tech, the tradition, the quality of the school and being in the city of Atlanta. This is the kind of city that energizes me."

Cover calls his job "a dream come true." G T

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

63

TER VIEW

"There's an old saying,'If you're trying to fill up a hole, you've got to stop digging first.' And we're digging furiously right now. To do nothing is betting the future of the world."

Interview by Leslie Overman Photography

by Gary Meek

Growing up on a farm in south Florida, Sam Shelton knew he wanted to be an engineer — even though he had never met one. He arrived at Georgia Tech as a freshman and stayed to get a doctorate. After a fiveyear stint working in aerospace propulsion and combustion, he returned as a faculty member in the School of Mechanical Engineering. Shelton has been focused on energy systems ever since the energy crisis of the 1970s. He holds eight patents and has been an entrepreneur in two start-up energy technology companies. Shelton has been appointed to various committees by the National Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy and is the director of the Georgia Tech Industrial Assessment Center. He also designed the relay torches for the 1996 Atlanta, 2002 Salt lake City and 2006 Torino Olympic games. The Strategic Energy Initiative was created in

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January 2004 to use the world-class Georgia Tech research community to develop highimpact, near-term commercial technology. Shelton, ME 61, PhD 69, is the founding director of SEE

Georgia Tech Alumni-Magazine • Summer 2006

JL-^mmm—mm

[ELTON Will we ever see cheap gasoline again?

1 don't believe we will. Worldwide depletion of oil reserves has made it very difficult to keep increasing production to meet global demand. For example, the United States is producing 40 percent less oil than in 1970. In addition to the United States, there are approximately 30 other countries that have also peaked and are declining in production.

The result: Oil has gone from $2 a barrel in 1970 to $70 a barrel today, and the price keeps rising.

The ability to produce oil at an increasing rate of about 1.5 to 2 percent a year, which is the

rate we're increasing our oil demand worldwide, is on a collision course with the geological laws of physics. The world's oil production will peak and decline at some point. All credible studies indicate that it will be sometime between now and 2015.

How will that impact our economy?

Historically, economy is tied directly to oil use. If less oil is available, our economy will decline. This is a worldwide phenomenon. China is increasing its oil demand at 10 to 15 percent a year and India is increasing its demand at a similar rate. Many people are predicting $100 a barrel by the end of this year. I hope that does not happen, because it will have severe worldwide economic repercussions.

assume that Saudi Arabia is going to be able to increase its oil production to not only cover the increase in world demand but also make up for the declining production in countries that have peaked, such as the United States. There's great doubt by all the experts that they can do that, but we are currently betting our future that they can.

What about natural gas?

There is a natural gas problem in the United States.

As U.S. oil production peaked in 1970, natural gas production is peaking in North > Âť

The United States is by tar the largest consumer. We produce 8 percent ot the world's production and use 25 percent.

The next highest world consumer is China, which uses less than 10 percent ot world production.

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Georgia Tecfi Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 20\

INTERVIEW>>

America. Therefore, we are starting to import liquefied natural gas from overseas, increasing our dependence on unstable regions.

What are the alternative energy sources?

There is no silver bullet and no 10-second sound byte solution for this world oil peaking problem. There are a hundred things we need to be doing, but shortterm, high-impact technologies come first. Ethanol is a shortterm, high-impact transportation fuel technology and hydrogen is long term.

All cars can now run on a mixture of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, which potentially reduces oil demand by 10 percent. It doesn't take a big drop in demand to make an impact on the price of oil. It's a very inelastic commodity. There are also 5 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road today that will burn 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline.

Can we make enough ethanol?

Cellulosic material is a huge renewable resource for producing ethanol. By cellulosic resources we're talking about cornstalks, wheat straw and wood. In Georgia, the near-term, high-impact, cost-effective program that can really be effective is ethanol from our plentiful biomass resources. We're currently getting all the ethanol from Midwest corn. But we're working to develop ethanol from Southern pine pulp wood.

There's enough Southern pine pulpwood in Georgia to replace about 20 percent of Georgia's gasoline. It's primarily a multi-

disciplinary engineering problem and a matter of selecting the most effective enzymes for Southern pine.

With appropriate financial resources, we believe we can have an ethanol production plant — with pulpwood going in and ethanol coming out — in three years. Georgia Tech is currently developing the design and the technology with an industry partner, C2 Biofuels.

Ethanol from our Southern pine pulpwood can have a veryhigh economic development impact on the state by reinvigorating the pulpwood industry.

What about wind energy?

The economics of producing electricity from wind power look attractive, not to mention the environmental benefits. You can do it for environmental reasons, you can do it for national security reasons or you can do it for economic reasons.

Georgia Tech has a partnership with Southern Company to study and design an offshore wind farm off the coast of Savannah. It's a beautiful example of how industry and academia can work together and learn from each other. We're hopeful that the results will be favorable enough that it will be built to produce clean electricity.

There are a lot of advantages to offshore wind power compared to wind power on land. In an expanse of ocean, you don't have land utilization issues. Wind resources are generally better offshore because you don't have obstacles like trees, hills and buildings that interfere.

Turbulence is less and the wind is more consistent. Offshore

wind farms generate the electricity close to the need on the highly developed coasts, reducing long-term transportation costs.

Most wind farms in this country are in isolated areas.

The electricity must be transmitted 500 miles or so to get it to the end user, whereas offshore wind farms provide electricity to a high-population density up and down the coast. The electricity is generated close to demand.

Ocean depths are relatively shallow up to 60 miles off the Georgia coast. This permits placement of the wind farm beyond the horizon and out of sight from the shoreline.

Like ethanol from wood, offshore wind energy is a highimpact, near-term technology.

The potential electric power production from offshore wind farms is greater than the electric power production from all the power plants in the U.S. today.

Hydrogen may turn out to be a good long-term technology.

But at best, it's going to pay off in 20 to 30 years. We've got a huge problem long before then. Hybrid vehicles are obviously something we need to do. However, it will take 10 to 15 years to eliminate all the current low-efficiency vehicles on the road today. But we've got to start now.

What about solar energy?

We can produce a lot of energy from solar power. The challenge with solar power is economics.

It is expensive compared to conventional electricity. Electricity coming from photovoltaic cells is on the order of 25 to 35 cents per kilowatt hour. The cost of conventional electricity from Georgia Power is 5 to 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

Photovoltaics are a longterm technology that we need to be working on. Georgia Tech has recognized the long-term potential of solar power and has developed one of the best photovoltaic research centers in the world — the Center of Excellence for Photovoltaic Research and Education > » Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

67

> >INTERVIEW

Ambient air quality issues such as smog are directly tied to energy technologies.

Smog comes from automobiles burning gasoline and from power plants burning coal and natural gas.

To address air quality issues, we need new energy technologies.

This is one more driver for new energy technologies.

headed by Dr. Ajeet Rohatgi.

However, photovoltaics produce electricity. We don't get any electricity from oil. So, like wind, photovoltaics don't impact our oil import situation or decrease our dependence on oil. It does impact demand for natural gas and coal. But in the next five to 10 years, it's not going to have a significant impact and it will never have an impact on our oil imports.

What about global warming?

The new energy issue is global warming. And the debate is getting more vigorous. The current consensus of scientists is that there is a problem, and the consequences are difficult to predict.

This is a long-term issue that we've got to start working on now. There's an old saying, "If you're trying to fill up a hole, you've got to stop digging first."

And we're digging furiously right now. To do nothing is betting the future of the world.

Solutions address other environmental issues, oil depletion issues, energy economic issues and dependence on unstable regions of the world for our energy supplies.

Can the U.S. ever become independent of foreign oil?

No. Absolutely not. At least not in our lifetime. We would have to cut our oil production by 60 percent right now.

Unfortunately, if you move out five or 10 years, that percentage is going to go up because our domestic production is going down while demand is going up. We're importing more and more every year. I can't fathom how we can become totally

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Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

independent, even in the next 30 to 50 years. But we need to try to reduce it and we can with new energy technologies.

Can we increase production?

Some people believe that is the solution to high-price oil and our dependence on imported oil, and that expensive oil will accomplish this. But it's not just a matter of economics. No company will waste money exploring and drilling in regions where oil reserves have been depleted.

There's currently a big controversy about drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up in Alaska. Some people seem to believe that if we drill in ANWR that we would become independent of foreign oil. U.S. Department of Energy studies have shown that if drilling in ANWR is approved by Congress now, the first oil will come out in 2013. It will reach peak production in 2024 and total U.S. oil production will still be less than it is today. From an oil supply viewpoint, we need to drill up there. When we do, we'll use it up and it will be gone.

Some argue that we should save it for the future when we will need it more than we do today. It's one of the hundred things we can do to reduce our oil imports but it's not going to turn around our declining U.S. oil production.

What about nuclear energy?

First, nuclear power is not a nearterm solution. The next nuclear plant, if it is built in this country, will probably come on line around 2015. Some applications for permits to build those plants will be filed this year and there

will be a national debate about whether we should build any nuclear plants.

Nuclear power has some people worried about the safety issues, nuclear proliferation and waste fuel. In addition, there are economic issues. Nuclear plants are very expensive to build and will take government subsidies, some of which were signed into law last summer.

Just like wind and photovoltaics, nuclear power produces electricity and will not reduce oil demand. However, these nonfossil fuel sources for electric power reduce global warming and improve ambient air quality.

What about conservation?

Conservation and efficiency reduce our energy demand.

Those technologies are diverse and can mean anything from more efficient automobiles to more efficient appliances, lighting, buildings — all of those things. We need to be increasing our minimum efficiency standards for home applicances that are justified by good economic payback for the homeowner.

A multitude of conservation and high-efficiency technologies need to be developed to have a near-term life impact.

Are you optimistic about our energy future?

Yes, I believe that the economic issues will galvanize the various interests and move us to action — something the environmental and national security issues have not been able to do.

I'm convinced that energy is the primary technological challenge over the next 10 years — and we will rise to meet the challenge, GT

A L U M N I A LM A N A C< <

Georgia Tech awarded honorary degrees of doctor of science at the 1931 graduation ceremonies to Harry Guggenheim, president of the Daniel Guggenheim Foundation and U.S. ambassador to Cuba; George G. Crawford, one of Tech's first two graduates in 1892 and president of the Jones-Laughlin Steel Corp. of Pittsburgh; and Howard E. Coffin, developer of the "now famous" Sea Island of Georgia. In conjunction with the honorary degree to Guggenheim, the new school of aeronautical engineering was dedicated at a ceremony on commencement day. Chancellor Charles N. Snelling bestowed the awards.

Georgia Tech students demonstrate an experiment in this 1956 photo. It was the year high school students listed a career as an atomic scientist in the cellar of the most-desired occupations. Commenting on a survey of 15,000 high school students sampled across the country that appeared in The New York Times, the alumni magazine lamented that the teen-agers ranked careers as mechanics, storekeepers and sales clerks above atomic scientist. A national campaign by educators "aimed at easing the shortage of scientists and engineers in this country has been pretty much of a dud," the magazine commented.

Bernadette McGlade, a 23-year-old former AllAmerican basketball player at North Carolina, was named head coach of the Georgia Tech women's basketball program. McGlade, who was one of the youngest head coaches in the country, was also the first full-time female coach at the Institute. GT

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

69

mumrn

Tubas and Test Tubes President Wayne Clough makes Tech sing and that, says the author of The World Is Flat,'is worth trumpeting

By Thomas L. Friedman

A recently expanded edition of "The World Is Flat" praises Georgia Tech's approach to education in the 21st century in a chapter titled "The Right Stuff." The following is an excerpt from the best-selling book.

I

f the jobs of the new middle require you to be a good collaborator, leverager, adapter, explainer, synthesizer, model builder, localizer, or personalizer, and these approaches require you, among other things, to be able to learn how to learn, to bring curiosity and passion to your work, to play well with others, and to nurture your right-brain skills, what does that mean specifically for education?

I am not an educator, so I come to this question with great humility. I am a reporter, though, and I can report that there are some real educators out there who have tried to address this question head-on. I am impressed by the amount of experimentation I have seen on college campuses as they try to design the "right education" for the new middle. I am going to focus on one school — Georgia Institute of Technology, based in Atlanta — to illustrate one thoughtful approach.

W

ayne Clough, Georgia Tech's president, had to rethink education in a flattening world out of sheer necessity. Clough took over as president in 1994. "When I came to Tech as an awestruck freshman back in the sixties," Clough told me, "they had

this drill for the incoming students.

They would tell us, 'Look to your left.

Look to your right. Only one of you will graduate.'"

Georgia Tech was not as selective in admissions back then as it is today, and it relied instead on a sort of Darwinian weeding-out process, focused entirely on grades. As Clough tells it, it was a very cold social and academic environment — not a lot of fun. Even by the early 1990s, Georgia Tech was graduating only 65 percent of its incoming students. Students were not finishing because they found both the curriculum and the atmosphere rather gray — and the school a place that did not celebrate student success.

Clough's view as he assumed the presidency was that our country desperately needed more good scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs, so his school couldn't afford to be losing onethird of its prospective grads by graduation day. Clough realized that only by offering the right education, not just more education, "would we get more students applying and more students graduating."

Clough began rethinking Georgia Tech's approach by reflecting on his own experiences as a working engineer.

Some of the best engineers he had collaborated with over the years had not been the best engineering students.

"They knew how to think creatively," he said. "They might not be the ones who could solve the calculus equation better than anyone else, but they were the ones who could define

the problem that the calculus had to solve better than anyone else ... They were often people with character and that something intangible."

The more time he spent on campus, the more Clough also noticed that an "awful lot of the talented students were interested in creative outlets other than what they were experiencing in the classroom" — filmmaking, or music making, or some other offbeat hobby.

"These students were interesting people when you talked to them. I began to think, 'Boy, wouldn't it be nice to have more of these sorts of interesting people around campus. It makes the place more enjoyable and it helps make the student who is more one-dimensional more multidimensional [by having him or her] bump shoulders with these other kinds of kids.'"

S

o beginning in the late 1990s, Clough gradually altered the admissions policies at Georgia Tech, having his admissions office focus specifically on recruiting and admitting good engineering students who also played musical instruments, sang in a chorus, or played on a team.

"The idea was that people who have other interests tend to be able to communicate, tend to be more social, tend to ask for help more readily when they need help, tend to help others more who need help, tend to think horizontally, ... tend to be able to tie things together from different disciplines and fields."

The result, said Clough: Today > »

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

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"People who play instruments have more social skills — they are not just burrowed down in their work." And that kind of person, Clough added, has a better chance of synthesizing and orchestrating insights from different fields.

more than 50 percent of Georgia Tech's entering freshmen have played musical instruments or participated in some kind of musical group — so many that Clough's biggest challenge now is building more recital rooms and concert areas on campus. "I created a monster/' he joked. He also created more graduates. Graduation rates rose from 65 percent when he arrived to 76 percent by 2005. And they are different kinds of graduates.

"The student response has been great/' said Clough. "We have seen a large increase in students taking music courses. We had little in the way of chamber ensembles, and now [we havej over a dozen. We never had a chamber orchestra group on this campus. Now we have five. We have computer music synthesizing groups, jazz groups, and virtual and robotic drummers all over the place." Virtual and robotic drummers — only at a tech school!

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t the same time, Clough told me, Georgia Tech's large music ensembles, like the marching band and the symphony orchestra, have increased significantly in numbers of participants and sophistication, and smaller groups like its glee clubs and a cappella groups also have grown dramatically We're talking Georgia Tech, folks, not Juilliard.

"So many students are seeking these kinds of opportunities," Clough added, that "we had an old high school on campus that we renovated into our music building and an old church with a big main hall that worked for some of our singing groups. We also created more casual places for students to exercise their talents, like a stage in the new student center."

Clough's effort to make Georgia

Tech sing was helped in 1996, when the school served as the Olympic village, housing athletes for the Atlanta Olympics. Georgia Tech's band director was selected as director of the Atlanta Olympics Band. When the Games were over, Georgia Tech was offered the chance to buy many of the instruments the musicians had used for half price.

"So we doubled the size of our band overnight," said Clough. "That was one of the triggers that got us started. It was great stuff. Because of that we have twenty-four tubas in our marching band. Very few schools have twenty-four tubas. You check it out next time you watch a bowl game."

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nd very few presidents of premier technology universities boast about their tubas as much as their test tubes. But Clough has reason to boast, because my guess is that by making Georgia Tech sing — and by making other user-friendly additions to the undergraduate teaching system, and by making education overseas easily available for Georgia Tech students — he is producing not just more engineers but more of the right kind of engineers.

"People who play instruments or are part of a band have more social skills — they are not just burrowed down in their work," said Clough. And that kind of person, he added, has a better chance of synthesizing and orchestrating insights from many different fields. For instance, said Clough, there is going to be a big demand for engineering around photonics — turning sunlight into electricity. That requires students who are trained in basic engineering, chemical engineering and electrical engineering. Clough quoted the head of a big engineering

firm, who told him recently, "Don't send me engineers who can be duplicated by a computer. I am sending that work to India. Send me engineers who are adaptable — who can think across disciplines."

As above, so below. Georgia Tech's College of Computing has picked up on these broad themes and has translated them into specific courses.

After the dot-com bubble burst, computer science enrollment at Georgia Tech started to drop precipitously.

"Everyone was reading the articles about all the jobs going to India and China," said Rich DeMillo, the former HP chief technology officer, who is now dean of the College of Computing.

"The number one question from parents was, 'What will my kid do if all the programming jobs go offshore?'"

S

o DeMillo and Merrick Furst, the associate dean, who was brought in from the International Computer Science Institute at Berkeley, went out into the business world and asked employers two simple questions: Who were they looking to hire and how were computer geeks being used to add value at their companies?

They visited CNN's headquarters in Atlanta, for instance, and were exposed to the massive amounts of digital and analog content the network had piled up. It became obvious that managing all of this content via computing, and finding ways to deploy it, from televisions to cell phones to video iPods to Web sites, was going to be a huge growth industry for the right computer science grads — ones who could help tell stories with technology.

After thinking all this through, in 2004 DeMillo and Furst redesigned the computer science major at Georgia > »

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

73

"There is no clear-cut hardware, software, algorithm stack. Instead there is business process, change management, and ERP. Now it is all horizontal and in constant motion. So if you are an educator, what do you do?"

Tech around nine "threads," as they refer to them. Each thread is a combination of computing with another field, producing a synthesis of knowledge — where the real value is going to be created.

"Threads represent a departure from a vertically oriented curriculum whose goal is the creation of students with a fixed set of skills and knowledge," explained Furst in his course description. "A thread is a fundamentally horizontal idea whose goal is to give students the broad collection of skills and learning experiences they need to thrive in the globally competitive Conceptual Age. A thread provides an intuitive, flexible and mutually strengthening set of courses that allows a student to craft his or her own distinctive future."

T

he nine threads are Computing and Intelligence, Computing and Embodiment, Computing and Internetworking, Computing and Platforms, Computing and Information, Computing and People, Computing and Media, Computing and Modeling, and Computing Foundations. You need to take two threads to get a degree in computer science today from Tech.

The Computing and Media thread, for instance, requires students to take courses in computer science, communications, writing, and liberal arts. The idea behind this thread, said Furst, is to teach students "what they need to know to tell stories and create experiences for humans through technology."

Here you'll see courses on topics ranging from computational graphics to "Hamlet," from human perception to interactive fiction engines, Furst added.

So, for instance, if you want to be a topnotch game designer, this is where to start.

74

The Computing and People thread prepares students by helping them to understand the theoretical and computational foundations for designing, building and evaluating systems that treat the human being as a central component. The student who pursues Computing and People might want to combine it with Computing and Embodiment to study human-robot interaction.

There are almost as many mix-andmatch permutations with these threads as there are coffee options at Starbucks.

"Imagine," wrote DeMillo in an essay describing his program, "a Georgia Tech undergraduate computer science student in her sophomore year interested in computer security. She might combine the Computing and Information thread — to learn how data is stored, retrieved, encoded, and transmitted — with the Computing and People thread — to learn how people use technology and how to run experiments with human subjects.... She will craft a valuable computing identity and become someone able to design, invent, and build secure computing systems enabling people to securely manage their information."

T

he point about each of these threads, individually and in combination, said DeMillo, is that they provide a skill set and credential basis that allows graduates to create value in ways beyond what would be possible with only a narrowly focused tool set — and that skill set is certain to have value in the emerging flat-world marketplace.

Twenty-five years ago, computer science was easy, added DeMillo.

"There was a clear stack — hardware, software and algorithms — and if you could fit in anywhere in that stack, you

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

had a job. You just picked one of those sweet spots to specialize in and you were off and running. You could work on hardware, you could program system software, or you could work on application algorithms.

"Now fast-forward twenty-five years. There is no clear-cut hardware, software, algorithm stack. Instead there is business process, change management, and ERP. Now it is all horizontal and in constant motion. So if you are an educator, what do you do?

"What remains unchanged is the need to be able to tell stories, to be able to build things that have intelligence in them, and to be able to create networks.

All that remains constant. But now the way you do that is by aggregating pieces horizontally. The threads are aimed at putting things together that make sense. That is why you need to run a whole university this way. The whole notion of separate departments is crazy. You really need to change the whole approach. This is not about small tinkering."

What the Georgia Tech model recognizes is that the world is increasingly going to be operating off the flat-world platform, with its tools for all kinds of horizontal collaboration. So schools had better make sure they are embedding these tools and concepts of collaboration into the education process. "It has to run through the whole curriculum," said Furst. "It can't just be a single course; otherwise we will never nurture a high enough percentage of the population to be competitive." GT

"Tubas and Test Tubes" from "The Right Stuff" from THE WORLD IS FLAT: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, Updated and Expanded Edition by Thomas L. Friedman. Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Thomas L. Friedman. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux LLC.

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Profile of a Campus Newcomer At 18, Trent Mayo is on the fast track to success. He is a race car driver, musician and a college graduate — and he enrolled at Georgia Tech as a junior. Mayo also is an example of the Institute's new brand of students.

By Ken Sugiura

Trent Mayo has two fistfuls of plans, goals and dreams, but just try to get him to use his daily planner.

"It drives me crazy," says Trent's mother, Eleanor Mayo Ross, "because I look at it, and it's always blank."

It borders on the incredible that he keeps track of it all without one. The days and nights of Mayo, one of the roughly 7,600 high school seniors who graduated in May from Gwinnett County schools, are filled up to his ears.

Two weeks earlier, Mayo earned his associate's degree from Georgia Perimeter College.

The 18-year-old spends his weekends racing cars on tracks around the Southeast. And he sings and plays guitar — one of six instruments he can play — performing often in local clubs and bars.

"He's the type of student you can't say enough good things about," says Mayo's adviser at GPC, Donald Singer. "He'll be successful, I'm sure, in every future endeavor."

Singer has overseen about 2,000 high school students over

seven years of joint enrollment classes at GPC. He says Mayo is the first on his watch to earn his associate's diploma by the time of his high school graduation.

Mayo began classes at Georgia Tech with junior standing in June. He plans to graduate in 2008 with a degree in mechanical engineering and, possibly, business.

"When he makes up his mind that's what he wants to do, he does it," Mayo's mother says.

"He may have difficulties accomplishing it to begin with, but he never lets that bother him."

Mayo's racing career began in 1999, when he was 11, on scaled-down cars. He has advanced to racing series with larger and faster cars and now competes on the Pro Challenge Series, a minor league circuit.

Last year, his second in the Pro Challenge, he won once, had 18 top 10 finishes and finished eighth out of 38 drivers in the points race.

He is competing in the series again this year, but he fractured his shin in a wreck at a race in Nashville, Tenn., in April that put him off the track through June.

"He's a hard charger, there's no doubt about it," says John Litzinger, president of the series and also a driver. "He's very skillful. He's learning every day, it seems like."

His music career began even earlier. According to his mother, Mayo asked for and received a guitar for Christmas when he was 6, and she signed him up for lessons. His teacher, Rick Ware, was skeptical but agreed to a first lesson. That

inflate his ego. Guy "Boots" Mitchell, of Hampton, Ga., is Mayo's crew chief and has known him for the six years he has raced. He says he thinks of Mayo, whose mother has raised him by herself, like a son.

"You just like Trent," he says.

"You can't help but like him."

Not that he's a perfect Goody Two-shoes. He has been known to pull doughnuts in the college parking lot. And Mayo and Kyle Mitchell — his buddy, racing teammate and Boots Mitchell's son — haven't been above talking their way into Atlanta Motor Speedway or backstage at concerts. "One thing is, we're friendly with the security guards," Mayo says.

changed his mind, and Ware has taught him ever since.

and he often sings or plays the national anthem before races.

"He's definitely got the talent," Ware says. "He just needs somebody to come along and recognize it."

His long-term goal does not lack for ambition. He wants to race alongside Tony Stewart and Dale Earnhardt Jr. on the Nextel Cup series and play concerts in the cities the NASCAR tour visits.

And beyond that, he wants to own a racing enterprise.

In younger days, Mayo was a schoolmate and talent show rival of ["American Idol" finalist] Diana DeGarmo. Since, he has performed at clubs and bars around Atlanta and Nashville, including two legendary Music City hotspots, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge and the Bluebird Cafe.

He recorded a demo CD of songs he wrote and played all the instruments on it.

His two passions have already blended. His major racing sponsor is Gibson Custom, a division of the guitar company,

All of this is why he is trying to speed through college.

"The way racing and music is, they're looking for younger and younger drivers and artists," Mayo says. "Most of them don't have an education past high school, so I thought I'd have an advantage there."

It has meant taking a full load of college courses as a high school junior and senior, includ-

ing seven honors classes at Georgia Perimeter. But Mayo has thrived. Through last semester, he was pulling down a 3.82 grade point average in his college classes, he says.

"He has an unmatched work ethic," says Singer, Mayo's adviser. "He's very exceptional, even among joint enrollment students."

While he doesn't make much use of his planner, he manages with to-do lists on paper and in his head to keep track of school, music and racing. He doesn't particularly enjoy laying back.

"I don't think I'm necessarily smarter or better than anyone," he says. "I just pushed myself because I know what I want to do."

Those who know Mayo say he hasn't let his many successes

Mayo hopes the whole package may help him get on — what else? — a reality show.

Mayo is one of 50 finalists, culled from about 3,400 applicants, for a show called "Racin' for a Livin'."

The top 15 vote getters on www.racinforalivin.com will appear on the show, with the winner earning a spot in NASCAR's Busch Series, the racing equivalent of Triple-A baseball. Voting runs through July 31.

"Like I tell everyone, if they take care of the voting, I'll take care of the driving," he says.

Mayo says he isn't afraid of failing at music or racing because at least he will have given it his best. Besides, he has plenty of other ideas he'd like to try. For instance, he wants to earn a pilot's license and start a commercial space flight company.

How's that for a to-do list? QT © 2006 Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Used by permission.

G e o r g i a T e c h Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

77

Georgia Tech Al

R E S E A R C H Kl V I I W> > >

Diamonds have their luster, but scientists are taking a shine to another carbon material — graphene — that could be the basis of a new class of electronics and revolutionize the microelectronics industry.

By John Toon Photography: Gary Meek

Georgia Tech professor Wait de Heer holds a proof-ofprinciple device constructed of graphene.

On the computer monitor in the background is an image of graphene patterning.

A

study of how electrons behave in circuitry made from ultra thin layers of graphite — known as graphene — suggests the material could provide the foundation for a new generation of nanometer-scale devices that manipulate electrons as waves — much like photonic systems control light waves.

In a paper published April 13 in Science Express, an online advance publication of the journal Science, researchers at Georgia Tech and the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in France reported measuring electron transport properties in graphene that are comparable to those seen in carbon nanotubes.

Unlike carbon nanotubes, however, graphene circuitry can be produced using established microelectronics techniques, allowing researchers to envision a "road map" for future high-volume production.

"We have shown that we can make the graphene material, that we can pattern it and that its transport properties are very good," says Walt de Heer, a professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. "The material has high electron mobility, which means electrons can move through it without much scattering or resistance. It is also coherent, which means electrons move through the graphene much like light travels through waveguides."

The research has received widespread interest and varied coverage ranging from The Economist to Physics Today.

"If ribbons of graphene could be created on an industrial scale, they would make superb connections inside computer chips. Such chips would be smaller and faster than anything yet seen," according to The Economist.

And Physics Today, a publication of the American Institute of Physics, reported, "De Heer envisions graphene sheets sliced wider or narrower and in different patterns depending on whether it's a wire, ribbon or some other component needed to make up a circuit. To avoid the contactresistance problem, for instance, one could pattern the graphene sheet into an array of thin parallel strips or wires."

Graphene was called "the magic carpet made

of carbon" in The Hindu, India's national newspaper.

"We expect to make devices of a kind that don't really have an analog in silicon-based electronics, so this is an entirely different way of looking at electronics," de Heer says in Science, Engineering & Technology News online.

"Our ultimate goal is integrated electronic structures that work on diffraction of electrons rather than diffusion of electrons," he says. "This will allow the production of very small devices with very high efficiencies and low power consumption."

The results should encourage further development of graphene-based electronics, though de Heer cautions that practical devices may be a decade away.

"This is really the first step in a very long path," he says. "We are at the proof-of-principle stage, comparable to where transistors were in the late 1940s. We have a lot to do, but I believe this technology will advance rapidly."

The research, begun by de Heer's team in 2001, is supported by the National Science Foundation and the Intel Corp.

I

n their paper, the researchers reported seeing evidence of quantum confinement effects in their graphene circuitry, meaning electrons can move through it as waves. "The graphene ribbons we create are really like waveguides for electrons," de Heer says.

Because carbon nanotubes conduct electricity with virtually no resistance, they have attracted strong interest for use in transistors and other devices. However, the discrete nature of nanotubes — and variability in their properties — pose significant obstacles to their use in practical devices. By contrast, continuous graphene circuitry can be produced using standard microelectronics processing techniques.

"Nanotubes are simply graphene that has been rolled into a cylindrical shape," de Heer explains. "Using narrow ribbons of graphene, we can get all the properties of nanotubes because those properties are due to the graphene and the confinement of the electrons, not the nanotube structures." >» Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

79

>>>RESEARCHREVIEW

Researchers Xuebin Li and Claire Berger monitor high-temperature graphene growth in an induction furnace.

De Heer's research team began working on graphene in 2001 and received support from Intel in 2003.

They have received a Nanoscale Interdisciplinary Research Team award and filed a patent for their method offabricating graphene circuitry.

80

De Heer envisions using the graphene electronics for specialized applications, potentially within conventional silicon-based systems.

"We have shown that we can interconnect graphene, put current into it and take current out," he says. "We have a very promising electronic material. We see graphene as a platform, a canvas on which we can work."

De Heer and collaborators Claire Berger, Zhimin Song, Xuebin Li, Xiaosong Wu, Nate Brown, Tianbo Li, Joanna Hass, Alexei Marchenkov, Edward Conrad and Phillip First of Georgia Tech and Didier Mayou and Cecile Naud of CNRS start with a wafer of silicon carbide, a material made up of silicon and carbon atoms. By heating the wafer in a high vacuum, they drive silicon atoms from the surface, leaving a thin continuous layer of graphene.

Next, they spin-coat onto the surface a photoresist material of the kind used in established microelectronics techniques. Using electron-beam lithography, they produce patterns on the surface, then use conventional etching processes to remove unwanted graphene.

"We are doing lithography, which is completely familiar to those who work in microelectronics,"

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

says de Heer. "It's exactly what is done in microelectronics, but with a different material. That is the appeal of this process."

Using electron beam lithography in Georgia Tech's Microelectronics Research Center, they've created feature sizes as small as 80 nanometers. The graphene circuitry demonstrates high electron mobility — up to 25,000 square centimeters per volt-second — showing that electrons move with little scattering. The researchers expect to see ballistic transport at room temperature when they make structures small enough.

S

o far, they have built an all-graphene planar field-effect transistor. The side-gated device produces a change in resistance through its channel when voltage is applied to the gate.

However, this first device has a substantial current leak, which the team expects to eliminate with minor processing adjustments.

The researchers have also built a working quantum interference device, a ring-shaped structure that would be useful in manipulating electronic waves.

The key to properties of the new circuitry is the width of the ribbons, which confine the electrons in a quantum effect similar to that seen in carbon nanotubes. The width of the ribbon controls the material's band-gap. Other structures, such as sensing molecules, could be attached to the edges of the ribbons, which are normally passivated by hydrogen atoms.

Beyond coherence and high electron mobility, the researchers note that the speed of electrons through the graphene is independent of energy — just like light waves. The electrons also possess the properties of Dirac particles, which allow them to travel significant distances without scattering.

Among the challenges ahead is improving the techniques for patterning the graphene, since electron transport is affected by the smoothness of edges in the circuitry. Researchers will also have to understand the material's fundamental properties, which could still contain "show-stoppers" that might make the material impractical.

De Heer has seen hints that graphene may offer some surprises. "We already have indications of some new and surprising electronic properties of this material," he says. "It is doing things that we have never seen in two-dimensional materials before." GT

FiLiut*!

Georgia Tech's Ferst Center for the Arts extends deep appreciation to the following Tech Alumni for their support in the past year.

Thanks to your efforts, today's Georgia Tech students experience world-class performances in music, theatre and dance.

Kay Elizabeth Adams, IMGT 1971 John C. Bacon, IE 1967 H. Wade Barnes, Jr., BIOL 1971 Kimberly Krabe Barnes, IMGT 1984 Harry L. Beck, IMGT mo John A. Busby, Jr., ARCH 1956 Kenneth G. Byers, Jr., EE 1966, MS EE 1968 Marcus J. Dash, AE 1966, MS AE 1968 William Houser, Jr., EE 1988 Birdel F. Jackson, III, MS CE1974 J. Lamar Jordan, IM 1950 Robert K. Khoury, /M 7970 Gary S. May, EE ms LeShelle R. May, MS OR 1989 Akira Morita, MSSTAT2005 S. Alan Sanders, IM 1969 Marvin 'Sonny' Seals, III, /M 7965 Fred B. Smith, MATH 1973 John B. Smith, Jr., MGT1991 Alfred G. Spulecki, MS MOT 2002 Ivenue Love-Stanley, ARCH 1977 William J. Stanley, III, ARCH 1972 Joseph J. Thomas, IE 1998 Edward L. Underwood, IE 1971 Roger P. Webb, Ph.D. EE 1963 "In the 2005-2006 school year over 4,000 Tech students attended performances by artists like pianist Lang Lang, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, and Chick Corea-artists who inspire each of us to do our own best work. What an incredible opportunity for these students to have during their years on campus."

-Marcus J. Dash, AE 1966, MSAE 1968 All Georgia Tech alumni are invited to support the programming of the Ferst Center, which includes lowcost student tickets and free arts enrichment programs.

To become a member of the Ferst Friends group of donors please contact the Ferst Center at 404-894-2787.

349 Ferst Drive 4 0 4 - 8 9 4 - 2 7 8 7

www.ferstcenter.org

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

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This limited edition gift has all of the original Baby Buzz favorites, plus a wonderful CD featuring original lullabies a n d a piece entitled "Georgia Tech Medley."

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G e o r g i a T e c h Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

FACU LTYPROFILE

Paper Work Tim Patterson (shown hang gliding) saw the handwriting on the wall and left a career in the aerospace industry, but the Tech assistant professor still can't be pinned down.

By Gary Goettling

T

im Patterson is one Georgia Tech assistant professor who doesn't mind all the paperwork associated with his job. As a matter of fact, paper work is his job; Patterson teaches the manufacturing principles and chemistry of paper.

"I'm always picking up pieces of paper and examining them," he laughs. "I'm a lot more aware of what the quality of a good, high-end paper should be."

The forensics of ordinary writing or photocopier paper are easy for a layman to assess, he notes.

"If you hold up a piece of paper to the light, you can see light spots and dark spots, which has to do with how well the fibers are distributed in the paper," he explains. "The more uniform it is, the better a piece of paper it is.

"Nowadays most paper has some recycled content in it. If they didn't do a good job of cleaning the recycled paper, you end up with spots in e final product."

A1991 graduate of Georgia Tech, where he earned a PhD in engineering science and mechanics, Patterson's path to an academic career was winding and extemporary. As a teen-ager, he wanted to become an astronaut and toyed with the idea of majoring in aeronautical engineering.

"My father convinced me that if I were a mechanical engineer I could always do aeronautical engineering, but if that didn't work out I could just be a regular mechanical engineer."

The advice was ironic, considering that Patterson's dad was a forest ranger. "Engineers weren't his favorite people when I was growing up," Patterson grins.

P

atterson was born in northern California, but it's hard to pin down a single place that could be called his hometown. His family returned East at the first opportunity and moved to a succession of national parks as his father moved up throu^ the ranks of the U.S. Forest Service. >Âť

Photo: Larry Herndon

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

>>FACULTYPROFILE

"Most paper products involve extremely high-volume production. Paper mills typically produce 1,000 to 1,500 tons of paper a day, and that paper might sell for anywhere from $500 to $800 a ton.

Saving just 1 percent on production costs every year is a pretty big deal."

He enrolled at the University of Lowell in Massachusetts, where he earned a degree in mechanical engineering in 1982. "When I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I said I'd never go back to school again," confesses Patterson, who soon learned why one should never say never.

When a job with McDonnell Douglas Technical Services Corp. in Houston proved unsatisfactory, he did what many young people searching for a career foothold do: He went back to school, this time to Northeastern for a master's in mechanical engineering.

In keeping with his interest in aerospace, Patterson accepted a position with Northrop in Newbury Park, Calif., designing control systems for drone aircraft. Unfortunately this was the 1980s, when a shrinking aerospace industry began cutting loose engineers by the thousands. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Patterson decided to pursue a doctorate at Tech.

In 1993, he was hired as a research engineer at the Institute for Paper Science and Technology, where his background in systems and controls fit well with the increasingly technology-reliant paper industry. Seven years later he was named to the IPST faculty and in 2003, when IPST became part of Georgia Tech, Patterson came along with it as a faculty member of Tech's School of Mechanical Engineering. He teaches two graduate courses — one in paper physics and another in pulp and paper manufacturing — and a sophomore-level mechanical engineering creative design class.

P

atterson, who has a wife, Kathleen, and a stepson, Michael, hardly fits the button-down professorial mold. He rides a Honda Shadow 1100 motorcycle to work and on excursions with his wife and enjoys hang gliding.

"With both motorcycling and hang gliding there are ways to be safe and ways to not be safe," he says. "You have to pay attention to what you're doing and critically evaluate the risks you're taking and make sure you're not taking serious risks."

Paper manufacturing may seem to be an antiquated field, but Patterson points out that technology offers many useful new approaches to one of Georgia's traditional industries.

"We start with a natural cellulose fiber, and filler or coatings are added to impart certain properties," he explains, citing the example of some

86

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Summer 2006

paper towel brands engineered with polymers to provide strength. "Some of this work is in the nanoscale range."

The manufacturing side benefits from innovation as well, Patterson says.

"Most paper products involve extremely highvolume production. Paper mills typically produce

1,000 to 1,500 tons of paper a day, and that paper might sell for anywhere from $500 to $800 a ton.

Saving just 1 percent on production costs every year is a pretty big deal."

To his students, Patterson is a pretty big deal too. In 2005 he was voted Teacher of the Year by Georgia Tech's Graduate Student Government

Association and Faculty of the Year by his paper science and engineering students.

"First, you have to like teaching," he says.

"I've also found that putting enough time in to prepare to walk into class is the key to doing a good job, so I try to have a well-planned lesson when I walk into the classroom." GT

To be a good and effective teacher, Patterson says, "first, you have to like teaching."

Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine â&#x20AC;˘ Summer 2006

87

The super Jackets celebrate a sweep through the NCAA Atlanta Super Regional with three straight wins in June at Russ Chandler Stadium to earn a trip to Omaha, Neb., and a berth in the College World Series. It marked Tech's third appearance in the championship series, including 1994 and 2002. The Yellow Jackets were eliminated from the series after losses to Clemson and Cal State Fullerton. Sophomore Matt Wieters was selected as a first-team Ail-American by Baseball America magazine. Wieters joins major league all-star Jason Varitek of the V^ Boston Red Sox as the only catchers in school history to earn firstteam All-America honors. GT A Photo: Stanley Leary

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