Department of Aerospace Engineering

Aerospace Engineering
BS 1964 and, MS 1965

President, Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation

After getting his BS and MS degrees from Iowa State, James T. Johnson spent the next 28 years with the Boeing Company, starting out as an aerospace engineer and rose to the position of Vice President of Engineering and Product Development and later to Vice President and General Manager of the Renton Division and the Everett Division, where the Boeing 747, 767, and 777 were produced. 

In 1993, he left Boeing and became president of the Large Commercial Engine Group of Pratt and Whitney, a division of United Technologies, and in 1994, he became President of GE Capital Aviation Services, a holding of General Electric. In 1997, he moved to Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation, where he served as president and chief operating officer until his retirement. 

Johnson currently serves as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Flight in Seattle. He is an Alfred P. Sloan Fellow and earned an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He is a fellow of AIAA and the Royal Aeronautical Society.

BS, Aerospace Engineering, 1967

Executive Vice President of Lockheed Martin Space Systems

David Klinger began his career with Lockheed Missiles and Space Company as a satellite attitude control systems engineer while pursuing his MS and PhD in aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford.

As a control systems engineer at Lockheed, he assumed positions of increasing technical and managerial responsibility, becoming eventually Vice President and Assistant General Manager for the Space Systems Division.

After the merger of Lockheed with Martin Marietta, he held several leadership positions in the company’s military and commercial space programs, rising to Executive Vice President of Quality and Operations, Missiles and Space.

He received the Meritorious Service Award from the National Reconnaissance Office in 2003, the Silver Knight Award from the National Management Association in 2000, and the Employee Recognition for Management Excellence award from Lockheed Martin in 2002.

BS, Aerospace Engineering, 1986

Vice President and General Manager, Combat Systems
Boeing Integrated Defense Systems

A native of Iowa, Dennis Muilenburg received a BS degree in aerospace engineering from Iowa State and a MS degree from the University of Washington.

He joined Boeing in June 1985 and has held a progression of program management and engineering positions on a broad range of large-scale programs. He was the Weapon System director for the Joint Strike Fighter program.

In 2001, he became Vice President of Programs and Engineering for Air Traffic Management, where he was responsible for the overall development of Boeing’s program to modernize the air traffic management system and to support complementary global communication, navigation, and surveillance services.

In 2003, he became the Boeing Company Vice President and General Manager for Combat Systems, and Program Manager of the Future Combat Systems effort – the centerpiece of the U.S. Army’s network-centric transformation initiative.

Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
MS 1950 and PHD 1954

Distinguished Professor, University of Tennessee
Distinguished Scientist, Oak Right National Laboratory

A native of Raymond, Illinois, Robert Uhrig came to Iowa State in 1948 for graduate studies in theoretical and applied mechanics after completing his BS with honors from Illinois.

He was an instructor in engineering mechanics at West Point while on active duty with the U.S. Air Force from 1954 to 1956 and then returned to Iowa State as a faculty member in engineering mechanics and nuclear engineering. In 1960, he became chairman of Nuclear Engineering Sciences at the University of Florida and served as Dean of Engineering from 1968 to 1973.

Uhrig then left academe to become Vice President for Advanced Systems and Technology at Florida Power and Light. During his career, he authored 250 technical articles and two books, was elected Fellow of the American Nuclear Society in 1970, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1980, and Fellow of ASME in 1980.

In 1969, he received the ASME Pi Tau Sigma Richards Memorial Award as Outstanding Mechanical Engineering Graduate for the Period 1944-1949.  He was the recipient of the Glenn Murphy Award for Outstanding Contributions to Nuclear Engineering Education from the ASEE in 1992.