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RESUME AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
GEORGE R. LEBO, SR.
Credentials:
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BS, Physics, Wheaton College, 1959
MS, Physics, University of Illinois, 1960
Ph.D., Physics, University of Florida, 1964
Qualified submarine sailor, 1954 – 1962
Licensed insurance agent, State of Florida, 1993 – 1995
Licensed real estate agent, State of Florida, 2004
Experience
A. Academic:
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Student assistant in Biology Division, Argonne National Laboratory; assisted in low
background radioactive counting of soil and tissue samples to evaluate fallout from
atmospheric nuclear tests, summers of 1959 and 1960
Research Assistant in electron microscopy and astrophysics; studies of decameter
wavelength radio emission from the planets, University of Florida, 1960 – 1964
Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Florida, 1964 – 1965
Assistant Professor of Astronomy, University of Florida, 1965 – 1977
Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Florida, 1977 – 2003
NASA Faculty Research Fellow, Summers, 1991, 1992, 1995 – 2003
NASA Space Grant Faculty Fellow, 1992 – 1994
Coordinator, NASA MSFC Space Academy Program, 1994
Director, Undergraduate Astronomy Labs and Observatory, University of Florida,
1996
Member, UF Senate, 1999 – 2001
Emeritus Associate Professor of Astronomy, 2004 – present
B. Business
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Vice-President/Treasurer, Pacemaker Diagnostic Clinic of America, Inc., 1972 –
1975
President, Pacemaker Diagnostic Clinic of America, Inc., 1975 – 1978
Vice-President, Biomega, Inc., 1976 – 1977
Vice President, Florida Solar Industries, Inc., 1978 – 1979
Chairman, Board of Directors, Pacemaker Diagnostic Clinic of America, Inc., 1978 –
1988
Director, Phoenix Advanced Technology, 1984 – 1995
Chairman, Board of Directors, Phoenix Advanced Technology, 1984 – 1989
Assistant Secretary, Phoenix Advanced Technology, 1988- 1995
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Vice President, Phoenix Advanced Technology, 1984 – 1987
Director, Nutri-Products Inc., 1987 – 1991
President, Nutri-Products Inc., 1987 – 1989
Chairman, Board of Directors, Nutri-Products Inc., 1989 – 1991
Treasurer, Nutri-Products Inc., 1989 – 1991
Consultant, Institute for Space Science and Technology, 1990 – 1994
Coordinator, National Space Grant Industrial Task Force, 1992 – 1994
Consultant, RJC Consulting Company, 1999
President, ScienceRules.com, 1999 - Present
16 Publications – Details Available on Request
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Professional Organizations:
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American Astronomical Society
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American Geophysical Union
Southeastern Section of the American Physical Society
Florida Academy of Sciences (Chairman, Physical Sciences Section,
1968-69)
American Association for the Advancement of Science.
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Honorary Memberships:
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Sigma Pi Sigma
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Danforth Associate, 1967-present
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Sigma Xi
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Scholastic Honor Society 6/90
Biographical Sketch
George R. Lebo was born in Chadron, Nebraska, September 27, 1937. Until World
War II he lived in several small towns in northwest Nebraska and southwest South
Dakota where his father taught school and/or acted as school principal or
superintendent. At the beginning of the war his parents moved to Denver where they
both worked as chemists and where he attended grade school. In 1945 they moved to
Sargent, Nebraska where his father pastored a small church and where he attended
junior high school. In 1950 they moved to Wheaton, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago,
where he attended high school and college, graduating from Wheaton College in
1959. At college he met Kathleen A. Newburg whom he married in 1958.
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At age 17, a junior in high school, he enlisted in the submarine reserve. He served as
an enlisted man in the US submarine navy reserves for eight years receiving an
honorable discharge in 1962.
In 1959 he and his wife Kathy moved to Urbana, Illinois where she taught school and
where he attended the University of Illinois, graduating with a masters degree in
1960. They moved to Gainesville, Florida in 1960 where he attended the University
of Florida, completing his Ph.D. in physics in 1964.
Their first child, George Jr., was born in 1960. They later adopted two other children,
Tami in 1965 and Sonja in 1968.
In 1960 they and several other families formed a Bible study group which in 1970
became the Community Evangelical Free Church (now called Creekside Church)
where they have served in various capacities over the years and and where he has
served as an elder. In 2007 he and Kathy moved back to First Presbyterian Church
where they had attended in the early 1960’s. He currently serves as an elder there and
serves as the chair of their college ministry committee.
His hobbies include sports of all kinds, especially running. (He has run and
completed seven marathons.) He and Kathy collect and finish antiques which fill
their rather large home.
Academic Sketch
During his senior year in high school George was chosen the best science student in
his senior class and was awarded the Bausch and Lomb Honorary Science Award.
He opted to attend Wheaton College rather than Harvard, MIT or the University of
Chicago, all of whom recruited him. During the summers of 1958 and 1959 he
worked at the Argonne National Laboratory where he assisted in the low background
radiation analysis of samples (largely soil) sent in from various locations on the earth
to determine the effect of the US atmospheric nuclear testing.
After graduating from Wheaton College with a BS in physics in 1959 he enrolled at
the University of Illinois in Urbana to pursue graduate studies in nuclear physics. He
refused assistantship support claiming it would slow his progress to the Ph.D. He
acquired his MS in one year and, in 1960, he enrolled in the Physics Department at
the University of Florida in Gainesville.
In his second year (after the death of a key physics professor) he was given the total
responsibility of all of the lectures in one of the general physics courses for engineers
and scientists (300 students). He became interested in radio astronomy after spending
a fruitless year examining Ph.D. projects in electron microscopy. After he received
his Ph.D. in physics in 1964 he was awarded a post-doctoral fellowship at the
University of Florida. He attended a brief two-week meeting for prospective
experiments on the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory (OAO) then proceeded to
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Guanta, Chile near which he and other UF astronomers set up a low frequency radio
observatory in a deep Andean mountain valley inland from the Cerro Tololo
Observatory. In 1966 he joined the faculty of the UF’s Department of Physics as an
assistant professor and received tenure in 1969. In the summer of 1968 he directed a
program for 20 black high school students designed to interest them in research.
Each of them subsequently finished at least two years of college with most
completing baccalaureate programs. One has a Ph.D.
His primary field of interest is planetary radio astronomy with emphasis on the planet
Jupiter. He participated regularly in ground-based studies and has operated
experiments from the Arecibo, PR observatory and NRAO at Green Bank, WV as
well as from the UF Dixie County Radio Observatory. He has also participated in
the analysis of Voyager II radio data.
He spent the summers of 1991, 1992 and 1995-2001 as a NASA Summer Faculty
Fellow at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). In 1992 he took a leave-ofabsence from the University of Florida to accept a special two-year appointment from
NASA Headquarters as a Space Grant Faculty Fellow. As a Space Grant Fellow he
made or assisted in presentations at the White House, the Pentagon, the US Office of
Education, the National Geographic Society, the Southern Regional Education Board
and NASA Headquarters. He made numerous space grant presentations and popular
level lectures to college officials, faculty and students. During the summers of 1994
and 1995, he coordinated the activities of the University students in NASA’s Space
Academy program at the MSFC. In 1998 he introduced to NASA an outreach
program called “NASA Ambassadors” which equips NASA Summer Faculty Fellows
to give popular level talks in their home communities. In 2002 he helped start the
NASA “Astronomy Apprentices” program which encourages young and old alike to
look up. Each subscriber receives a telephone call encouraging him/her to go outside
during the next hour to see a particular astronomical event such as the passage of the
ISS, a special phase of the moon, simultaneous conjunctions of bright planets, etc. In
2003 instructional materials were added and it was made available to schools in
selected states as the “Skycalls” program
In 2003, after a total of 37 years, he retired from the faculty of the University of
Florida having taught more than 20,000 students. He was named an emeritus
associate professor of astronomy at the UF where he continues to teach elementary
level astronomy classes.
Business Sketch
Shortly after he and his wife adopted their daughter, Sonja, in 1968 they discovered
that she had a congenital heart defect. He became interested in electronic applications
to cardiovascular problems and subsequently he and one of his graduate students
designed and patented a device to check cardiac pacemakers via telephone. In 1970
they set up a privately held company, Pacemaker Diagnostic Clinic of America, Inc.
(PDCA) which provided pacemaker services to physicians nationwide. He served in
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various capacities as its president, board chairman, treasurer and as a director. PDCA
was sold in 1991.
In 1976 he and four others formed Biomega, Inc. to develop a computer controlled
sphygmomanometer (blood pressure device). Their technology is widely used in
sphygmomanometers today. He served as vice president in 1976 and 1977. It was
sold in 1979.
In 1984 he and several others formed Phoenix Advanced Technology, Inc. (PATI), to
identify, develop and market medical innovations acquired from medical schools. In
1986 he joined PATI full time (taking a two-year leave of absence from the UF) as
vice president and board chairman. One of the PATI principle investors, Robert
Cade, MD (the inventor of Gatorade) put into the company several inventions
including a nutritional beverage called Go!. In an IPO (Initial Public Offering) PATI
issued stock to the public in 1986 netting about $3.5M. In 1987 PATI formed a
wholly owned subsidiary, Nutri-Products, Inc. (NPI) to develop and market Go!. In
1988 NPI sold about $3.5M of company stock to the public in an IPO, PATI retaining
71%. Lebo served as NPI’s president from its inception in 1987 to August 1989
when he returned to the faculty at the University of Florida. NPI was merged back
into its parent corporation (PATI) in 1991. He continued to serve on PATI’s board
until 1995.
In 1990 he joined the Institute of Space Science and Technology (ISST) as a
consultant, a position he held until 1994.
As a Space Grant Faculty Fellow, during the period 1992-1994 he coordinated the
activities of Space Grant’s National Industrial Task Force, a group established to
build NASA’s/Industry/University ties. During that period he also coordinated the
MSFC Space Academy Program for undergraduates.
He is currently president and co-founder of ScienceRules.com, a startup Internet
company which specializes in science education and communication. Its primary
business is to run NASA’s most popular website, http://science.nasa.gov. It also
operates a proprietary telephone alert service, http://spaceweatherphone.com, and
conducts research in computer security.
His special strengths lie in his ability to articulate scientific and medical ideas to lay
people, consequently he has always been fundamentally involved with raising capital
from both the private and public sectors.
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