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Annual Celebration of Ronald McNair by N.C. A&T to be Held Jan. 28

By Tonya Dixon / 01/16/2020 Alumni, Employees, Students

Ronald McNair

Annual Celebration of Ronald McNair by N.C. A&T to be Held Jan. 28

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Jan. 16, 2020) –North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University will celebrate the life and legacy of alumnus Ronald E. McNair, Ph.D., at 11:30 a.m., Tuesday, Jan. 28, in the Deese Ballroom, located in the Student Center, on campus.

The keynote speaker for the 34th annual celebration is Reginald “Reggie” Goodwin, ’84, ’19. He had the experience of meeting McNair as an undergraduate in the N.C. A&T Air Force ROTC and the Department of Physics. Emulating McNair, Goodwin earned a degree in Engineering Physics and participated in the same A&T Karate Dojo.

Goodwin has an extensive background in high volume manufacturing with over 15 years in the semiconductor industry. Among many other areas, he’s worked in product, device, process and operations engineering and most recently as an operations manager supervising customer engineers and service technicians in chemical vapor deposition, ion implant, metal deposition, rapid thermal processing, epitaxy and reactive ion etch.

He received undergraduate and graduate degrees from A&T and is currently enrolled in a doctoral program at the university.

In 1978, McNair, was selected as a mission specialist astronaut for the NASA Space Shuttle Program. On Jan. 28, 1986, he was aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger for his second mission when it experienced fatal malfunctions upon takeoff. McNair died along with six other crew members.

In homage to McNair, students from the STEM Early College at N.C. A&T participated in a rocket launch contest. The students learned the basic principles of physics to build and launch the rockets. The winners will be acknowledged at the celebration.

The program will include greetings and presentations from students, faculty, staff, administrators, city officials and community leaders.

Required registration for the event is available at https://ncat.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6LLQHXGYNP84Q3b.

Media Contact Information: tddixon1@ncat.edu

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