Des Moines Register
04-09-06
Doak: National push could help ISU produce more star engineers
RICHARD DOAK
REGISTER COLUMNIST
One recent evening at Iowa State University, the after-dinner talk turned to
whether the United States needs to make a big national push in science and
engineering again, as the country did back in the '50s and '60s.
The honored guest was an illustration of the possibilities. He studied engineering
at ISU during the last great science initiative and went on to lead the nation's
largest aerospace company.
Vance D. Coffman, who grew up on a farm near Winthrop, retired in 2004 as
CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp. The company marked the occasion by donating
$1.5 million to ISU to establish an endowed chair in aerospace engineering in his
name.
Why did an Iowa farm boy come to Ames in the early '60s to enroll in aerospace
engineering? He liked math, said Coffman, and he figured there was a future in
aeronautics because the nation had recently established the goal of putting a
man on the moon.
He figured right. After graduation, he went straight to work for Lockheed's spacesystems division and also completed a Ph.D. in aeronautics and astronautics
from Stanford.
He became leader of the space-systems division, where he was responsible for
the Hubble Space Telescope, the MILSTAR satellite communications program
and a space-based infrared early-warning system. Later, he helped make
Lockheed a major player in telecommunications.
When he became CEO in 1997, a BusinessWeek profile quoted an industry
executive as saying, "If you met him in a Wal-Mart store, you wouldn't know he's
the CEO of one of the largest companies in the world. He has never forgotten
where he came from."
The Iowa roots were apparent when a number of relatives from Buchanan
County joined Coffman and his wife, Arlene, for an aerospace engineering
honors banquet at ISU. He and Arlene met in high school. She studied
accounting at the University of Iowa while he was at ISU. Today, they split their
time between homes in Reno, Nev., and Pebble Beach, Calif. Coffman serves on
a number of boards, is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and
occasionally is called upon to advise ISU's Department of Aerospace
Engineering.
Attending the university, he said, "truly changed my life, and I will be forever
grateful."
The program from which he graduated may be one of Iowa's least-publicized
gems. Besides Coffman, aerospace engineering at Iowa State has produced
another CEO of a major corporation. The late Thornton A. Wilson, who graduated
from ISU in 1943, rose through the ranks at Boeing. He was project engineer for
the B-52 bomber and as CEO was responsible for developing the 757 and 767
jetliners.
Coffman and Thornton are among several nationally prominent graduates in an
aerospace engineering hall of fame in Howe Hall on the ISU campus. Tom Shih,
chair of the department, said the aerospace engineering enrollment of more
than 400 at ISU ranks fourth or fifth nationally.
ISU sometimes is questioned about having such a large aerospace engineering
program when Iowa is not exactly known as an aerospace center. But Shih notes
that Iowa-based Rockwell Collins is in aerospace. Besides, he said, aerospace
engineers don't just build airplanes. Their studies include elements of electrical
and mechanical engineering as well as other engineering disciplines, so an
aerospace engineer is trained to take a total systems approach to design and is
employable in many different industries.
If Coffman and Thornton are any examples, they also can become corporate
leaders in one of the few industrial sectors where the United States is still the
undisputed world leader.
"It's very exciting to think we are nurturing the next Vance Coffman now," said
Shih.
Indeed it is. It's also interesting to ponder where the United States would be
today if it hadn't been for the Apollo program and the rest of the national
commitment that produced a whole generation of scientists and engineers upon
whose work today's prosperity rests.
And it makes you wonder what will happen to the United States if we don't renew
that commitment so that a new generation of American engineers can show the
world how it's done.