Alabama Engineering Hall Of Fame To Hold 2001 Ceremony

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame will induct seven individuals and honor one project and one corporation/institution during a ceremony on Saturday, Feb. 24, 2001 in Huntsville.

The State of Alabama Engineering Hall of Fame was founded by proclamation of the governor in 1987 to honor, preserve and perpetuate the outstanding accomplishments and contributions of individuals, projects, corporations and institutions that have brought, and continue to bring, significant recognition to the state.

The following will join the 72 individuals already inducted into the Hall of Fame:

L. Owen Brown launched his career in the U.S. Navy, where he served 25 years and retired as a captain. His distinguished career is characterized by renowned skills in management and engineering that have given him the ability to see emerging technologies that will have pervasive influences on people’s lives.

Today Brown is CEO of Owen Brown Enterprises and a managing partner of Technology Strategies & Alliances. Brown is also a member of Silicon Valley’s Band of Angels, 80 entrepreneurs united to share their expertise, where Brown focuses on turning engineering dreams into market reality by sponsoring local start-up companies.

A graduate of Auburn University, Brown and his family are noted philanthropists for schools, hospitals and cancer research. Brown serves on the Auburn College of Engineering’s Alumni Council and its executive committee.

N. Jan Davis, a native of Huntsville, has traveled on three shuttle missions and has spent nearly 700 hours in space. Dr. Davis is director of flight projects directorate at Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville.

Davis holds a master’s degree from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and has served as team leader in development of both the Hubble and Chandra telescopes. She holds NASA’s Outstanding Leadership Medal, Exceptional Service Medal and three Space Flight Medals, as well as the Marshall Space Flight Center’s Director’s Commendation.

Robert E. Hails, a retired U.S. Air Force general, is responsible for incorporation of the “Head Up Display,” or HUD, first used in the A-7D Corsair. Variants of Hails’ windscreen HUD are used today in most military aircraft and have been applied by Southwest and Delta airlines.

A graduate of Auburn University, he has been honored with Auburn’s Engineering Achievement Award and serves on the college’s Alumni Engineering Council. A graduate of Harvard University’s Graduate School of Business, Hails is a charter member of the National Aviation Hall of Fame.

W. George Hairston III, president and chief operating officer of Southern Nuclear Operating Co., has dedicated his career to the safety and health of the Southern Company system.

A native of Birmingham and a graduate of Auburn University, Hairston is a generous patron and promoter of minority programs at Auburn and The University of Alabama. He is responsible for helping to significantly increase the funding for the minority engineering program at UA.

William W. Moss, best known for designing the Talladega Super Speedway (now the Alabama International Motor Speedway), Moss wrote the book on designing radically faster tracks for stock car racing. He became president of the Moss Thornton Co. in 1973, which, under his leadership, became one of the largest earth-moving/construction firms in the United States.

A UA alumnus, Moss has been named a Distinguished Engineering Fellow by the UA College of Engineering, the College’s highest honor.

Stephen F. Thornton, last year’s Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year, is responsible for the success of Cybex computer products of Huntsville. Thornton recently engineered a merger with Apex INC., a leader in server console management and switching technology, to form Avocent Corp. where he serves as chairman, president, and chief executive officer.

Thornton holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University.

Francis Erskine White, a graduate of Auburn University, has contributed his life’s work to engineering remarkable innovations in steel fabrications. He has also founded several successful firms in the Birmingham area with his brothers.

White holds a patent for building new equipment for bending structural steel shapes. To date, he has designed and built six different models of his bending machinery, each reflecting improvements on the previous model.

Also to be honored at the induction is one project.

The Hubble Space Telescope was named for Edwin P. Hubble who confirmed the “expanding” universe, laying the foundation for the Big Bang Theory.

The telescope’s rate of discovery is unprecedented. With five to 10 years’ worth of observations yet anticipated, the Hubble Space Telescope has already studied 13,670 astronomical objects; made 271,000 individual observations; and returned 3.5 terabytes of information, archived on optical disks in a treasure trove for coming generations of scientists. Some 2,800 scientific papers have resulted from the work of this telescope.

The solar powered Hubble space craft is the world’s most serviceable space craft, with replacement of scientific instruments and flight-critical components providently included in Marshall Space Flight Center’s system design.

In the corporation/institution category, ADTRAN, in Huntsville, will be honored at the induction. ADTRAN implements digital telecommunications services over existing telephone networks, and also provides products to a large number of corporate end-users and to a growing number of international customers. The company develops custom-designed products for many well-known original equipment manufacturers.

ADTRAN is committed to supporting engineering education in the state of Alabama and has endowed a number of engineering scholarships at UA, Alabama A&M, Auburn University, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville.

GTE has twice named ADTRAN as a Best in Class Supplier and once awarded the company its Supplier of the Year award.