Source: Raylene Alexander, 785-826-2940, raylene@k-state.edu

Thursday, April 2, 2009

AVIATION EXPERT JOHN GOGLIA TO PRESENT ADVANCE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE AT K-STATE AT SALINA

SALINA -- Aviation expert John Goglia will discuss aviation safety issues in his ADVANCE Distinguished Lecture at Kansas State University at Salina.

Goglia's lecture will be at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 7, in the Conference Room at K-State at Salina's College Center. The lecture is free and the public is welcome.

Goglia, who currently serves as senior vice president of JDA Aviation Technology Solutions, was the first airframe and powerplant mechanic to serve on the National Transportation Safety Board, which he joined in 1995. As a board member, he played a key role in focusing international attention on the increasing significance of aircraft maintenance in aviation accidents. He also participated in numerous air, rail and bus accident investigations, and chaired the board's public hearings on the ValuJet crash in the Florida Everglades. In addition, Goglia is a founding member of the National Coalition for Aviation Education.

The lecture is supported by K-State's National Science Foundation-funded ADVANCE Project Seminar Series through an award to Raylene Alexander, assistant professor of aviation at K-State at Salina. It is the first ADVANCE Distinguished Lecture for the aviation program. The lecture series brings distinguished professors and experts from across the country to K-State at the invitation of the university's tenure-earning women assistant professors. The lecture series facilitates professional connections between women faculty members in the colleges of Agriculture, Arts and Sciences, Engineering, Human Ecology and Veterinary Medicine, as well as K-State at Salina, and leaders in their research areas.

K-State's ADVANCE program has a goal of creating a transformed institution that purposefully attracts, retains, supports and advances women in the disciplines of science, engineering and mathematics.