2020 Alumni Hall of Fame
Built upon their common educational foundation at NC State University, The MAE Alumni Hall of Fame was established in 2012 to inspire our current students, and to celebrate the accomplishments of our extraordinary graduates who have used their education to excel in a profession, career or service. This nomination is based on professional and service achievement, entrepreneurship and contributions to professional societies, making this a truly noteworthy distinction.
With over 12,000 MAE alumni, only 150, including this year’s class, have been inducted into the MAE Hall of Fame. The MAE Department is honored to celebrate this prestigious ceremony with the 2020 class.
“I think the success of any school can be measured by the contribution the alumni make to our national life.” – John F. Kennedy
Dr. Mary Hudson just retired from a rewarding 36-year career at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics and Sandia National Laboratories. Her most recent roles included Lockheed Martin Senior Manager of F-35 Flight Test Operations, F-35 Chief Engineer at Edwards Air Force Base, and a Chief Engineer at the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. Her 16 years on F-35 included roles in aerodynamics, external environment, store separation, store certification, and flight test which was documented in the AIAA Progress in Astronautics and Aeronautics volume 257, “The F-35 Lightning II: From Concept to Cockpit.” Mary earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from New Mexico State University, a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford, and a PhD in Aerospace Engineering from North Carolina State University with her thesis titled “Linear Stability Theory of Hypersonic Flows in Thermal and Chemical Nonequilibrium.”
Dr. Hsu has fifty (50) years of diversified experience in Systems Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Nuclear Engineering, software development and engineering management, and has worked as technical manager, project manager, principal investigator and project leader, mainly at The Boeing Company. He
implemented the first break-through systems engineering application, a pioneer in
developing and establishing systems engineering process, methods, tools, and templates for the Boeing Company. Dr. Hsu is an elected AIAA Fellow, and INCOSE ESEP. As a Visiting Professor of Royal Academy of Engineering, and Honorary Professor of Queens University in United Kingdoms, Dr. Hsu has taught faculty members, post-graduate staff, graduate and undergraduate students in UK and Netherlands, and professionals worldwide. He is the author of two books and many papers. He has served as general chair, technical chair, conference organizer and session chair in AIAA and INCOSE. Currently, he works as Associate Editor for Journal of Aircraft, Adjunct Professor at California State University Long Beach, and Board Member and instructor of the University of California Irvine Systems Engineering Certification Program. He has received numerous honors and awards and taught professional development courses at AIAA since 2003.
Dr. Hsu earned Ph.D. in MAE, MS in NE, and MS in ME from NC State. He is a registered Professional Engineer.
Greg Schott grew up in Charlotte, and graduated from NC State with a BS in Mechanical Engineering (1986). He started his career in manufacturing and design engineering with Westinghouse. He then received an MBA from Stanford (1991). After business school, he worked for The Boston Consulting Group in Boston and then returned to the San Francisco Bay Area where he has spent over 20 years building and leading technology companies from early-stage through IPO. Greg served as Vice President of Marketing and Vice President of Operations at DG Systems and then served as Senior Vice President of Marketing and Corporate Development at Agile Software. He then became Senior Vice President of Marketing at SpringSource. Greg became MuleSoft’s CEO in 2009, growing MuleSoft from $2M in revenue to over $800M and from 20 people to over 1,700. Greg led MuleSoft’s IPOin 2017 and subsequent $6.5B acquisition by Salesforce in 2018. Greg and his wife are active philanthropically to address health and education challenges in developing countries.
As a student, Kimberly Missy Moore gained valuable work experience through the Engineering Co-Op program. In 1988 she joined R.J.Reynolds Tobacco Co as a Manufacturing Engineer and earned her PE in Control Systems in 1998. Across her 32 years at Reynolds, Missy held various leadership roles in both IT and Operations and for many years had the privilege of presenting the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research and Extension to deserving members of the NC State Engineering faculty. Prior to her recent retirement, she had responsibility for all US cigarette production for Reynolds. Beyond her work life, Missy has served faithfully at her church, mentored High School robotic teams, and served on the MAE Advisory Board. Missy is an avid horseback rider and shares that interest with her husband of 30 years, Mark Moore ( NCSU IE ’85), and is the proud mother of Sarah Moore (NCSU BioMed Engineering 2018) and Tanner Moore (NCSU Ag Business Management 2021).
Marc Kniskern is a distinguished member of the technical staff at Sandia National Laboratories and a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Marc received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in aerospace engineering from NCSU in 1988 and 1990, respectively. Marc has worked at Sandia for over 30 years and he is recognized expert in applied aerodynamics, flight mechanics, and flight safety. Throughout his career, Marc had a significant national impact on the development of several advanced and exploratory flight systems.
Jeff Cope graduated from NCSU in 2001 with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering. He founded InspectionXpert Corporation in 2004 to help precision manufacturers transform their inefficient paper processes. Mr. Cope bootstrapped his business from a corner desk in his bedroom to a business with over 20 employees, 7,000 users across 6 continents in 14 different languages, and $3.5 million in annual revenue. Mr. Cope’s software has been used by NASA, Pratt & Whitney, Hyperloop, Roush-Yates Racing, and many others. Mr. Cope successfully sold his company in 2018.
Keith Hoffler is the founder and president of Adaptive Aerospace Group (AAG). Upon graduation his career began at ViGYAN where he designed their wind tunnel and did a wide variety of aerospace research and development including aerodynamics, flight dynamics and controls, human-in-the-loop and batch simulation studies, and flight tests. As ViGYAN’s VP of Aerospace Product Development he led an effort that resulted in the first satellite weather datalink to be certified for the general aviation market. The technology was sold to WSI (now part of The Weather Company) where Keith worked long enough to obtain FAA certification of the system and see the first units operational in the market. Keith finds things that work less interesting than trying to make new ideas a reality, so he founded Adaptive Aerospace Group to get back to R&D. Among other things Keith and AAG are currently working with NASA and the FAA to integrate unmanned aircraft into the national airspace system and develop means to certify fly-by-wire Part 23 aircraft. Keith is a commercial/instrumented rated pilot and a participating member of RTCA and ASTM standards committees related to UAS and general aviation. Keith is an AIAA Associate Fellow, current chair (2020) of the AIAA General Aviation Technical Committee, and an active member of other AIAA Technical and Policy Committees.
Scott Bledsoe is President of Blue Force Technologies Inc., an aerospace vehicle design and fabrication company in the Research Triangle Park (Durham, NC). Born in Winston-Salem, he realized at a young age he wanted to pursue a career in aerospace and decided to enroll in NC State’s aerospace engineering program. Upon graduation, Bledsoe took a position with Naval Air Systems Command at Cherry Point, NC working on the AV-8B Harrier II. This exposed him to composite structures and the difficult problems encountered by in-service support. Subsequently, Bledsoe spent three years in Naples, Italy providing on-site engineering services to a wide variety of Navy and Marine Corps aircraft deployed in the Mediterranean Sea and Persian Gulf. After his return to the US, Bledsoe took a position with Burt Rutan’s legendary Scaled Composites in Mojave, CA, a firm known for innovative rapid development programs such as SpaceShipOne and the Global Flyer. Bledsoe served as a Project Engineer leading the design and fabrication of several novel aircraft structures and was promoted to Engineering Manager charged with helping recruit and retain talented engineers. After five years at Scaled, Bledsoe went to Icon Aircraft, where he performed configuration layout and initial aerodynamics work on the prototype Icon A5. Following this low-speed aircraft program, Bledsoe joined Gulfstream’s Supersonics Program as Project Engineer, where he led the build of a novel full-scale fixed-geometry supersonic inlet test article, and developed an appreciation for the complexities of high speed flight. In 2010, Bledsoe decided to start his own business, and founded Blue Force Technologies in the Raleigh-Durham area with the intention of tapping into the highly talented flow of engineering graduates from NC State. At Blue Force, he has grown the company to over eighty employees, working more than 80 projects for more than 50 unique customers in ten years. Blue Force components fly on over 1,000 aircraft, and Bledsoe has personally led 12 major development projects from space, rotorcraft, electric VTOL, and jet powered UAS sectors. Bledsoe lives in Raleigh with his wife of 21 years and three daughters.
Dr. Jennifer Rhatigan is an aerospace professional recognized for her leadership and personal contributions in advancing technology in spaceflight for exploration, research and defense. Her 38-year career in the profession is marked by creative and unique contributions in the design, development, and operations of complex aerospace systems. She served 25 years with NASA, notably on the early design of the International Space Station (ISS) through the bulk of its construction, and on the start-up of NASA’s Constellation Program, taking the next step in human space exploration with the development of the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS). She currently advises and instructs early to mid-career Naval officers as Professor of the Practice, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, at the U. S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, CA.
Dr. Rhatigan arrived at NPS via agency-wide competition for the NASA Chair Professorship. In that role, she modernized and delivered graduate-level courses in spacecraft design. She successfully developed and implemented a course in Combustion that is now a regular offering via campus and distance-learning.
Dr. Rhatigan was recruited as an original team member for the Constellation Program, where she created and established foundational approaches that survived that program’s cancellation and continue to flourish under NASA’s new human exploration programs. She formed and led the International Objectives Working Group of 10 participating space agencies to establish goals and objectives for a reference human lunar exploration architecture. These have subsequently been used by partner agency governments to align with NASA on human exploration. She formed and led a 10-Center team in development of the Constellation Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. At its completion, this was the most comprehensive EIS in NASA history, and completed on budget and ahead of schedule. She assured the adoption of this work for the follow-on SLS and Orion programs, saving millions of dollars.
Dr. Rhatigan started her NASA career as a power system engineer on the ISS at NASA Glenn and held increasingly responsible positions in the ISS program as it evolved. She managed the Fluids and Combustion Facility which has flawlessly operated in the US laboratory module since 2008. She then managed all of the facility payload development efforts from NASA Johnson; and formed and managed the ISS Science Office, serving as the first Deputy Program Scientist.
Through her distinguished career, Dr. Rhatigan has been known across the aerospace community for her passion in encouraging the next generation of engineers and scientists. In addition to earning the highest ratings from the Naval officers she advises and instructs, she is a regular mentor and judge, most recently at an AIAA student conference. She is chapter advisor for her sorority at the STEM-focused UC-Merced campus in the under-served Central Valley of California. She currently holds the rank of Associate Fellow of the AIAA.
Dr. Rhatigan is the author of more than 40 peer-reviewed publications and holds a professional engineer’s license in the State of Florida. She began her career in a hard hat, designing steam power plant upgrades with an engineering firm in her hometown of Jacksonville, FL.