An unopened pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes stands at attention on his\u00a0office shelf.<\/p>\n
For Ricky Peters, executive director of the Air Force Research Laboratory and a non-smoker, it serves as a reminder.<\/p>\n
Peters has to make many important decisions these days, but he doesn\u2019t seem to need a Lucky.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a fun job,\u201d he said. \u201cI think I have the best job in the Air Force.\u201d<\/p>\n Peters manages the Air Force\u2019s $2.5 billion science and technology program and a workforce of about 10,400 people in the lab\u2019s component technology directorates and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.<\/p>\n He arrived at this summit after a boyhood spent in rural western Ohio and a journey that took him through Wright State University, AFRL at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee, the Pentagon, and finally back home to Wright-Patterson.<\/p>\n Peters grew up in the tiny village of New Lebanon, just west of Dayton. He attended Dixie High School, where he was a drummer in the band and played basketball for the Dixie Greyhounds.<\/p>\n His interest in mechanical engineering came naturally. His father was a machine repairman at General Motors, and Peters would work on cars and farm equipment. He was hoping to work for GM as an apprentice, but got a scholarship to Sinclair Community College in Dayton and obtained his associate\u2019s degree.<\/p>\n Peters then became a technician at AFRL as a civilian. The Air Force paid his tuition to attend Wright State, and Peters emerged with a bachelor\u2019s degree in systems engineering.<\/p>\n A highlight for Peters at Wright State was his senior design project. His team built a mini Baja car and took part in a competition, but the students\u2019 hopes of victory were dashed when they burned up a belt when the vehicle was forced to stop on a hill during a yellow flag.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was an awesome experience, a\u00a0great time, and I still remember that,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was a lot of evenings, a lot of weekends we worked on the car, but it was\u00a0a great time.\u201d<\/p>\n Peters said Wright State gave him a solid foundation in engineering principles and prepared him when he returned to AFRL at Wright-Patterson as an aircraft survivability engineer. His job was live-fire testing\u2014firing live munitions on test U.S. military aircraft to determine how survivable they were to foreign threats.<\/p>\n \u201cAs these shells go inside an aircraft, they actually explode\u00a0 and throw all of these fragments out,\u201d Peters said. \u201cYou have hydraulic lines, electrical lines, and because it bursts inside, it messes up everything. Sometimes when you would get a fire in a fuel tank, you get some pretty good explosions and large fires.\u201d<\/p>\n As a result of that work, Peters and his team members were asked by the FAA to help with the investigation of Pan Am Flight 103, which was destroyed by a terrorist bomb in 1988 while en route\u00a0from London to New York. All 243 passengers and 16 crew members were killed, as were 11 people on the ground in Lockerbie, Scotland.<\/p>\n Congress wanted to know how big of an explosive it takes to bring a commercial airliner down. The conclusions drawn by Peters and his team were used to develop detection technologies.<\/p>\n \u201cThe things you see in the airports today, and the amount and the size they can detect were based on the research and the findings that we had in that program,\u201d Peters said.<\/p>\n Hanging on a hook in Peters\u2019 office are a pair of safety goggles and a white lab coat patchworked with stains from the time he served as advanced development manager at the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate in the mid-1990s.<\/p>\n Peters insisted on wearing a used\u00a0lab coat, one that had absorbed its share\u00a0of spills.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I would go to the lab I\u2019d\u00a0always wear it, and they\u2019d think \u2018This guy\u2019s been here for a long time,\u2019\u201d Peters said with a laugh.<\/p>\n The white and yellow hard hats Peters keeps on his office shelf are a reminder of Peters\u2019 time in 2006 to 2008 at Arnold Air Force Base, a hypersonic wind tunnel testing area where he was executive director of the Arnold Engineering Development Center.<\/p>\n After a stint at the Pentagon as director of test and evaluation, Peters fulfilled Peters and his wife, Sheri, who has a master\u2019s degree in engineering from Wright State, settled in Brookville, west\u00a0of Dayton.<\/p>\n Peters, who has spent a total of 24 years at AFRL, is heartened by the youthfulness of his workforce. As many as 40 percent of the workers have been at the lab 10 years or less.<\/p>\n \u201cJust to be out with them and see the exciting things they\u2019re working on is awesome,\u201d he said. \u201cIt brings me back to when I was in the lab as a junior person.\u201d<\/p>\n His challenges include dealing with budget constraints and balancing AFRL\u2019s portfolio to meet short- and long-term Air Force technology needs.<\/p>\n \u201cA laboratory can\u2019t continue to do the same things year after year, so it gives us a chance to look at where we go in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cThere is always opportunity, I think, any time there are financial pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n It turns out that hard work\u2014not Lucky Strikes\u2014is the key to a successful career in the Air Force.<\/p>\n Peters says he learned the lessons of hard work on the mini Baja and the long hours studying engineering at Wright State, for which he is grateful. Continued interaction with the university, he says, gives him energy for the future of technology.<\/p>\n Morley Stone<\/strong><\/p>\n It was a course that changed the course of his life.<\/p>\n Microbiology. Sophomore year. Wright State University.<\/p>\n Stone said the course got him thinking about things with a cellular and sub-cellular perspective.<\/p>\n \u201cThat background just started to ignite a fire,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThe next year I took biochemistry courses, some medicinal chemistry courses, and then finished up with some molecular biology coursework. I knew at that time that I was hooked on trying to figure out things at the cellular and sub-cellular level.\u201d<\/p>\n Stone\u2019s interest in biology may have come even before that, perhaps subliminally.<\/p>\n He grew up in the tiny steel-producing town of Steelton in eastern Pennsylvania and worked for his father, who was the town funeral director. Anatomy and physiology came with the job.<\/p>\n \u201cIt also started sparking an interest in the biochemical basis of what\u2019s going on underneath the skin, so to speak,\u201d Stone said. \u201cIt began planting those seeds of interest.\u201d<\/p>\n After graduating from high school, Stone packed his bags, tossed them into his van, and drove to Dayton, where he moved in with his brother, a student at the Air Force Institute Stone enrolled at Wright State and was bowled over\u00a0by orientation.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things that really impressed me about the university at that time was just how personalized the attention was that I received,\u201d he said. \u201cThat meant a lot to me; it still does.\u201d<\/p>\n Sophomore year, the young biology student began working at Wright-Patterson.<\/p>\n \u201cComing through these doors as a 19-year-old kid, how much awe I had,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI had never seen people who could sit down and just write computer code so fluently, like they were a native speaker. That was just incredibly influential to me. I didn\u2019t even know people like this roamed the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n The opportunity to work on Air Force research projects while completing his bachelor\u2019s degree at Wright State was such a powerful combination that the Air Force sent Stone to Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh to get his Ph.D.<\/p>\n \u201cI walked into those first-year graduate courses incredibly prepared,\u201d he said, \u201cmuch better prepared than my classmates coming from top-tier universities. They didn\u2019t have near the breadth of experience that I had because of this unique environment that goes back and forth between Wright-Patterson and Wright State. It was a unique linkage between coursework and real-world science and technology application.\u201d<\/p>\n When Stone returned to Wright-Patterson, he was asked to set up a biotechnology group for AFRL\u2019s Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. He learned his way around Washington, D.C., and obtained funding from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.<\/p>\n Stone\u2019s mission was to figure out how biology makes materials and senses the environment and then use those principles to design systems for the Air Force. In one example, his group studied single-cell algae, called diatoms, that produce intricate structures made of silica, an oxidized form of silicon, widely used in the manufacture of computer chips.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started a project trying to figure out what\u2019s the molecular basis that the diatoms use to actually impart control over that silica. Is there any way that we can replicate that outside of the cell?\u201d Stone said. \u201cAnd the answer is yes, we can. We were very successful at that.\u201d<\/p>\n Stone then spent three years in Washington, D.C., at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). DARPA produces new technologies for use by the military and has helped develop such things as the Internet and stealth technology. Stone was a program manager for bio-inspired technology and also worked on sensing and molecular computation.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re there with people who have been chosen from academia, industry, and government. You\u2019re all jammed together,\u201d Stone said. \u201cBeing there with such bright people\u2014all who are there to get a lot of work done in a short period of time\u2014is a very In 2006, Stone returned to Wright-Patterson to head up the Hardened Materials Branch of the Materials and Manufacturing Directorate. Two years later\u2014after serving as senior scientist for molecular systems biotechnology in the Human Effectiveness Directorate\u2014he was named chief scientist for the 711th Human Performance Wing.<\/p>\n Stone said the biggest challenge in that role is trying to keep up with the breadth of work that is occurring in the human sciences and the rapid advances being made in the health and biosciences.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything from neuroscience, cognition, wearable sensors, human machine teaming; there are just so many fronts where there is such exciting work taking place,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Stone\u2019s advice to students seeking research jobs with the military is to accept that it will be a career of lifelong learning and to develop your critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re preparing for careers in research areas that don\u2019t even exist yet,\u201d he said. \u201cSo by definition you\u2019re going to have to be very facile; you\u2019re going to have to continually embrace learning new areas as they develop because that\u2019s just the nature of our current accelerating technology-focused world.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael Deis<\/strong><\/p>\n His hilltop office offers a spectacular view of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, the Dayton skyline and the horizon of western Ohio. Geese will sometimes take a flying break, swooping down to rest on the ledge outside his window.<\/p>\n Michael Deis has also ascended to these kinds of heights in\u00a0his career.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat it really boils down to is how do we protect and how do we ensure that our warfighters are able to accomplish their missions in a hostile environment?\u201d said the Wright State University graduate. \u201cHow do we counter the enemy\u2019s air defenses? How do we make sure our fighters get in to perform their mission and return home?\u201d<\/p>\n Books on Deis\u2019 bookshelves suggest both an interest in military history and administrative command\u2014Combat Search and Rescue in Desert Storm<\/em>, Norman Schwarzkopf\u2019s It Doesn\u2019t Take a Hero,<\/em> and Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell.<\/em><\/p>\n Deis\u2019 journey began in west Dayton, where he grew up as the son of an electrician who worked at General Motors Corp. The family later moved to Fairborn and then Xenia, where Deis attended Xenia High School.<\/p>\n The school allowed Deis to substitute all of the basic science courses with those on electronics.<\/p>\n \u201cI took electronics because I loved electronics,\u201d Deis said. \u201cMy dad was an electrician, and he used to wire houses. I started doing that with him when I was 10 years old.\u201d<\/p>\n Deis enrolled at Wright State, but found that his lack of preparation in biology, chemistry, and physics hurt him. So he left, enlisted in the Air Force, and married Karen, his high school sweetheart and now wife of 40 years.<\/p>\n Horses had brought the couple together. Karen had them. Deis told her he knew how to ride them. \u201cShe learned very quickly that I didn\u2019t have a clue about how to ride a horse,\u201d he said with a chuckle. \u201cBut we became best friends.\u201d<\/p>\n After finishing Air Force tech school in Denver, Deis and his new bride shipped out to the RAF Bentwaters\/Woodbridge, about 80 miles northeast of London.<\/p>\n A mentor encouraged Deis to go back to school and get his engineering degree. So he returned to Wright State and did just that. His wife also has her degree from Wright State, in human factors psychology.<\/p>\n Deis worked for Systems Research Laboratories in Beavercreek and served as a combat communications engineer with the Ohio Air National Guard before coming in 1987 to AFRL at Wright-Patterson, where he was a controls engineer in the Flight Dynamics Lab.\u00a0 He was promoted two years later and went into the test and evaluation of electronic warfare systems with the AF Electronic Combat Office.<\/p>\n In 1992, Deis was off to Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, where he spent the next 15 years in test and evaluation of munitions and weapons systems. He returned to Wright-Patterson in 2007 as technical director for Air, Space, and Information Operations at Air Force Materiel Command, then deputy director, and in January 2012 became director of the Sensors Directorate.<\/p>\n The directorate develops technologies for electronic devices, radio frequency sensing, electro-optical sensors and countermeasures, and automatic target recognition.<\/p>\n Deis has been working hard on how to advance Air Force capability in a \u201ccontested environment.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cFrankly, we haven\u2019t had a contested environment in over a decade now and we\u2019ve maybe lost a little bit of our skills and knowledge,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s regrowing that capability again, not only with our scientists and engineers in the Sensors Directorate, but also the technologies we provide to the warfighters so they can raise their skill levels up to where they need to be to safely accomplish their missions.\u201d<\/p>\n Deis said the engineering degree he obtained at Wright State provided him with the foundation upon which everything else was built. He said powerful bonds have developed between Wright-Patterson and Wright State.<\/p>\n \u201cMany of my scientists and engineers have strong relationships with Wright State,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have many Wright State graduates here who stay in touch, help advise, or guide students with their thesis or dissertation.\u201d<\/p>\n Deis himself serves as the Air Force advisor on the Wright State Engineering and Computer Science Board. \u201cWe\u2019re all working hard to try to help our students, both academically and professionally,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Deis, who also a master\u2019s degree in systems engineering from the University of Florida and a doctorate in organizational leadership from the University of Phoenix, said the Air Force has tremendous opportunities for STEM students.<\/p>\n \u201cEven though we\u2019re fighting budget pressures now, there is a recognition that students, future engineers, future scientists are the core and foundation of Air Force science and technology,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll always be bringing young folks in to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n Next Generation<\/strong><\/p>\n It all began with a phone call.<\/p>\n Wright State University President David R. Hopkins rang up then-Education Dean Gregory Bernhardt and urged him to organize an effort to start a STEM school in Dayton. That was 2007.<\/p>\n On June 1, the Dayton Regional STEM School graduated its first class\u201452 talented seniors bound for the likes of Wright State, Emory, Purdue, Texas A&M, Ohio State, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, and other schools.<\/p>\n Along the way, the students learned Mandarin Chinese.<\/p>\n They immersed themselves in challenging\u00a0 math, science, engineering, and technology courses.<\/p>\n And they engaged in real-world problem solving\u2014making presentations to lawmakers on a high-speed rail proposal, creating for health officials an anti-smoking campaign directed at teens, and building, packaging, and marketing a wooden, brain-teasing toy for the children of China.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re well down the road to our goal of having prepared young people who are going to be the next generation of innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers, and employees in high-tech who have a relationship with real companies in this region,\u201d said Bernhardt.<\/p>\n Bernhardt took the lead in putting the school together, working with public school leaders, the University of Dayton, Central State University, Sinclair Community College, Clark State Community College as well as the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce, the Boonshoft Museum of Discovery, and others.<\/p>\n The school is one of 12 public STEM schools across Ohio. They are designed to offer students a relevant, real-world education that prepares them for college and the working world. The students\u00a0participate in inquiry and project-based instruction that marries traditional STEM content with social studies, language arts, the fine arts, and wellness and fitness.<\/p>\n More than 540 students are expected this fall at the Dayton STEM school, an increase of about 120 students over last year. They come from more than 30 school districts in six counties.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the things about the STEM school that interested me was that there were people coming from all over the community to try to build this school together,\u201d said Bradley Hensley, a graduating senior.<\/p>\n This is the first year the school has operated at its full complement of grades 6\u201312, housing both middle and high school students and classes on one campus in Kettering.<\/p>\n \u201cSome really cool stuff goes on here,\u201d said Laurie McFarlin, director of communications and partnerships.<\/p>\n A stroll through the school bears that out.<\/p>\n Common areas are rimmed by computer stations, which draw huddling knots of students. Open classrooms reveal in-progress lessons of everything from art to computer modeling. A fitness commons is used for walking, weightlifting, Zumba, fencing, Tae Bo, and other activities.<\/p>\n \u201cThis place is buzzing from 7:30 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon,\u201d said McFarlin. \u201cAnd the pep rally we had several weeks back for our robotics teams looked a lot like a sporting event.\u201d<\/p>\n The school fields seven robotics teams, middle school and high school Science Olympiad teams, a Destination Imagination team, and a CyberPatriot team. Students have a chance to participate in Science Fair, Student Council, Muse Machine, yearbook, and community service. And it recently inducted the first group of junior and senior students into its new chapter of the National Honor Society.<\/p>\n The school doesn\u2019t operate in a bubble, but instead strives\u00a0to build relationships and connect with the outside world. One Principles of Engineering course is taught by employees from\u00a0Air Force Research Laboratory. And student artwork finds\u00a0itself on public display at places like Wright State and the Dayton Metro Library.<\/p>\n The STEM school has become a living laboratory of sorts. Delegations of educators from as far away as Russia and East Asia have dropped in to check out the educational model.<\/p>\n Wright State is the school\u2019s lead partner. All of the 37 faculty members and other eight workers are Wright State employees, but they are paid by the STEM school.<\/p>\n Kevin Lydy, who teaches U.S. history and comparative religion at the STEM school, said the school accepts students of all different skill and ability levels. But hard work is the common denominator.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want students who are going to be motivated by academic challenges and give us their all,\u201d Lydy said.<\/p>\n Philip Bottelier teaches introduction to engineering, conceptual physics, and computer modeling and simulation. Student netbooks are equipped with state-of-the-art software and they work in teams on re-engineering projects. The school also has a 3D printer on-site.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s high level,\u201d Bottelier said. \u201cThey are remarkable kids.\u201d<\/p>\n Hensley says the classwork is extremely challenging and there is encouragement for students to get their work done.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a very good thing,\u201d he said. \u201cI feel like I actually have to apply myself, have to do a lot of deep thinking. They teach you to be very independent.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" They have jetted to the stratosphere of research in the U.S. Air Force. One oversees the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). Another is chief scientist for human performance. A third heads up research on sensors. All are Wright State University … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2013\/09\/AFResearchPeters-260x184.jpg\")
<\/a>\u201cI worked for a general once, and his comment always was: \u2018You know, when things get really pressured and you think it\u2019s too much, just take a break and smoke a Lucky,\u2019\u201d Peters said. \u201cSo everybody had a pack of Lucky Strikes at work, just in case things got too tight and you had to make a tough decision.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nhis goal to return to AFRL in the spring of 2013, when he returned to Wright-Patterson as the executive director of the organization where he laid the underpinnings of his career.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2013\/09\/AFResearchStone-260x183.jpg\")
<\/a>It launched Morley Stone on a journey that has led him to a mountaintop of his profession\u2014chief scientist, 711th Human Performance Wing, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.<\/p>\n
\nof Technology.<\/p>\n
\nexciting experience.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2013\/09\/AFResearchDeis-260x176.jpg\")
<\/a>As director of the Sensors Directorate at the Air Force Research Laboratory, he heads up efforts to develop the Air Force\u2019s science and technology in intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, precision engagement, and electronic warfare. He oversees an annual budget of more than $850 million and the activities of about 1,300 scientists, engineers, and others.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/files\/2013\/09\/AFResearchStemSchool-260x176.jpg\")
Walls are dressed with posters of Mahatma Gandhi, Mt. Fuji with Japanese script, and an\u00a0 array of student artwork such as a collage of watercolor paintings of cells\u2014an effort to fuse a lesson in art with biology. College pennants are pinned to the cafeteria wall, a tribute to the destinations of graduating seniors.<\/p>\n