SHUTTLE EDUCATIONAL SERVICES was incorporated in Alabama as a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation in May of 2001. I was working at the time as a SYSTEMS ENGINEER for Westinghouse which later became the WASHINGTON GROUP. The Project was a Chemical Demilitarization Incinerator in Anniston, Alabama at the Anniston Army Depot where chemical weapons had been stored in underground bunkers since World War I. Engineers had come from all over the United States to work on this Project to destroy chemical weapons as the US committment, along with the former Soviet Union, to a Treaty that both parties had signed. This was a different direction from my engineering career which had begun with NASA in 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama as a Test engineer on the Apollo, Saturn V Program in which we were competing with the Soviet Union in a race to the moon.



Since 2001, our program has continued to develop and change as we track the Space Shuttle Launches and the assembly of the International Space Station (ISS). In February of 2003 when the Shuttle Columbia (STS-107) was incinerated as it re-entered the atmosphere over Palestine, Texas, our program took on a new mission which continues to the present time. This mission was a result of a letter left behind by the Commander of Shuttle Columbia, Rick Husband. We hope that all who become a participant in our program will become a participant in that part of our mission as well.



Our north Alabama location is a five acre facility at 322 Tucker Road, 35160, just off Interstate 20 in Lincoln, Alabama about four miles from the Honda Plant where the Odyssey Van is manufactured and about five miles from the Talledega NASCAR Track.



Our south Alabama location is in Chickasaw, Alabama at 65 West Lee Street, just off Interstate 65. Chickasaw is the small town that I grew up in and where I was living in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik. I attended Vigor High School graduating in 1960 and went on to study physics at Spring Hill College, the oldest Jesuit College in the South, where I graduated in 1964 with a BS in physics. From there, I worked a short time for Mobile Paint Manufacturing and in 1966 moved to Huntsville after being hired by Chrysler Corporation Space Division to work on the Apollo Project. I later went to the University of Georgia to work on a Masters Degree in solid state physics. You might say that I have come full circle in the past forty years, back to my hometown where it all began. It is interesting to note that when my journey began, there wasn't a University of South Alabama nor was there a University of Mobile or a Bishop State University.



Some things haven't changed though. Students still need a good education to compete in this high tech world, and many of them need a place to live when they are going to school, whether it be a two year or four year institution of higher learning. In addition many families need some kind of financial assistance during this time. I am very grateful for the scholarship along with the National Defense Student Loan that made it possible for me to get a college education. Our Student Shuttle Program is my attempt to bridge this financial gap for families all over the world who need this type of program.