Edward T. Welburn Jr. James E. West James Wigfall Dwayne A. Wilson Gen Johnnie E. Wilson
Vice President, Research Professor, VP, Supplier Management Senior VP & General (U.S. Army Ret.)
Global Design ECE Whiting School of The Boeing Company Manager President & COO
General Motors Engineering Fluor Corporation Dimension International Inc.
Corporation Johns Hopkins University
and taking classes in the afternoons and ical The Sky is Not the Limit: Adventures offshore drilling and refining facilities
weekends at the Planetarium. of an Urban Astrophysicist. and pipelines crossing the 500,000 square
mile Gobi Desert in Mongolia. Fluor
From that start, Tyson would become one Most recently, Tyson was the most promi- built facilities for America’s nuclear devel-
of the world’s foremost astrophysicists, nent proponent of reclassifying the solar opment a half century ago, and also han-
and head of one of its most prominent system to scrap the count of nine planets dles the country’s nuclear environmental
planetariums – the one which nurtured and, instead, lump Pluto with other icy cleanup. Fluor’s mining projects span the
his interest as a youth. bodies in the Kuiper Belt. The Planetari- globe, while its life sciences group builds
um’s new exhibit, in 2000, divided the biomedical facilities for genetic and phar-
Tyson attended the prestigious Bronx solar system into three categories – a view maceutical research.
High School of Science, and went on to which was criticized originally, but has
earn his B.A. in physics from Harvard and now been officially adopted by the world’s For the past 26 years, Dwayne Wilson
his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Columbia astrological societies. has been an integral part of the Fluor
University in 1991. Three years later, story, working on and leading engineering
while conducting post-doctoral research “The gas giants – Uranus, Neptune, projects around the globe. As senior vice
at Princeton into the structure of the Jupiter and Saturn – are all big, low president and general manager, Wilson
Milky Way, the 34-year-old was contacted density, gaseous, and have rings and many heads Fluor’s worldwide mining opera-
by trustees of the Museum, and asked moons,” Tyson explained. “They have tions, with more than 1,000 engineers
about possible future directions for the more in common with each other than and 25,000 construction workers. It is a
Planetarium. they do with anything else in the solar position in which he spends three quarters
system. The terrestrials – Mercury, Venus, of his time on the road.
“I was not alone among those being ap- Earth and Mars – are small, rocky, and
proached,” he said. “But I spoke with love dense. “I’m now responsible for projects pretty
and passion for the place. It had helped much around the world,” Wilson said.
establish the transition from being an “That left the asteroid belt with Pluto and “We have mining programs in Spain,
amateur astronomer as a kid, and where I thousands of other small objects that were Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, North America,
would land as a scientist. icy, with elongated orbits. It was inter- and in Outer Mongolia in the Gobi
preted that we were kicking Pluto out of Desert.”
“I gave credit for that to the efforts of the the solar system, and I played along with
scientists and educators at the Planetari- them, saying Pluto was too small to make The latter is the world’s largest desert,
um during my formative years, and I have it in New York. But that isn’t what drove some of it sand and some of it hard rock,
this deep obligation to serve others in the the decision.” with temperature fluctuations from -400
next generation the way they served me.” to 1130 in the summer. “Many of the
Dwayne A. Wilson places I visit now are never on the beaten
Tyson, at the time, only the 10th black Senior VP & General Manager track for tourists,” said Wilson. “But
out of 2,000 astrophysicists in the world, Fluor Corporation they are interesting, and you get a chance
would become the driving force behind For nearly a century, the Fluor Corp. to interact with indigenous people. We
the Hayden Planetarium. In that role, he has been synonymous with state of the donate time and build schools and class-
has put a black face of the nation’s view of art construction technology and man- rooms, and find that very rewarding.”
astrophysics. Tyson was host of the 2004 agement, as the world’s largest publicly
PBS NOVA mini-series Origins, and hosts owned engineering firm. For more stories on USBE & IT magazine’s
its spinoff program NOVA Science Now. Most Important Blacks in Technology for
He is also author of seven books, includ- It has pioneered oil and gas field con- 2007 go to www.blackengineer.com, the
ing Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of struction from the industry’s earliest days home of USBE & IT magazine online.
Cosmic Evolution, and the autobiograph- in the American Southwest, to modern
38 USBE & Information Technology I January/February 2007
http:www.blackengineer.com
Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68