The three siblings have joined together to fund an ISyE junior faculty endowment in honor of their parents, Mary Anne and the late Harold R. Nash, EE 1952. The fund will provide resources to recruit and retain some of the best young faculty in the industrial engineering field. The Nashes encourage the School to use the fund to attract and support female applicants to the faculty. "The growing presence of women at Tech was one of the seminal transitions during our time there, and we all identify with the need to accelerate that trend. Outstanding role models play an important part in that development," state the Nashes in their commitment letter.

The three Nash siblings aren't the only family members to attend Georgia Tech. Mike married Ellen Evatt, TEXT 1973. Another sister, Mary Alice, married Arthur Ivey, CE 1981 . Ron's son David is now a junior in ME, and Mike's daughter Jennifer is a sophomore in architecture.

Both Deborah and Ron are members of the ISyE Advisory Board. Chair John Jarvis is pleased with both the family's personal and financial commitment. "Many families send multiple generations to Georgia Tech, but only a select few choose industrial engineering as their 'family' major," he says. "I am proud to know them and especially appreciate their collective decision to create the Nash Family Endowment Fund."

Professor Ellis Johnson won the prestigious INFORMS John Von Neumann Theory prize for 2000. He shares the prize with Manfred Padberg of Carnegie Mellon University.

Assistant Professors Hayriye Ayhan and Anton Kleywegt have received the National Science Foundation's CAREER Award. This award recognizes outstanding scientists and engineers early in their career who show exceptional potential for leadership at the frontiers of knowledge. It is the highest award bestowed by the U.S. government on young scientists and engineers.

OTHER FACULTY NEWS

Her students and fellow faculty may not know it, but Assistant Professor Victoria Chen brings more than engineering expertise to the Tech campus. Dr. Chen is an accomplished dancer, with a resume that includes the Johns Hopkins Dance Company and the Princeton Ballet Society. In addition to her Statistic Modeling and Design classes, she also teaches modern dance for the GT Options program.

Amy Pritchett has been selected as one of 16 recipients of the XVI Sixteen Award, given by the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The award honors Department students and alumni under age 35 whose innovation and vision are expected to create a future of opportunity.

Professor Richard Serfozo has a new book, Introduction to Stochastic Networks, published by Spring-Verlag. Dr. Serfozo's book describes the theory of stochastic network flows that arise in computer/telecommunications, manufacturing, supply chain, biology and other areas.

Professor Esogbue happens to fit the mold. In talking with Dr. Augustine 0. Esogbue, I learned that he joined the Georgia Tech faculty in June 1972 as an associate professor, under a joint appointment with the Health Systems Research Center, after a four-year stint as an assistant professor of operations research at Case Western Reserve University. In 1977, Esogbue was promoted to the rank of full professor with tenure, becoming the first African American in the history of Georgia Tech to do so.

In his long-term residency at Tech, Esogbue has made his mark. He is the founder and director of the Intelligent Systems and Control Laboratory whose mission is, according to Esogbue, "the exploration of the use of hybrid algorithms and intelligent control methodologies for modeling and solution of complex control problems, especially those with humans in the loop."

Applications range from manufacturing to space, from electrical power systems to water resources, pollution, and a gamut of problems facing the healthcare industry.

Esogbue is recognized worldwide as one of the leading contributors to the literature of dynamic programming, fuzzy logic and intelligent control. He is the author of five books and 15 book chapters. He has published more than 150 technical papers, as well as made more than 300 technical presentations. He serves on the editorial boards of six international journals.

Esogbue has displayed an uncanny skill and a high level of involvement in the community, both on and off of the Georgia Tech campus. He is a 'White Charter Contributor' to the Harold E. Smalley Health Systems Chair, and the founding chair of the Coalition of 100 Black Youth, Atlanta Chapter. As a member of the 100 Black Men of America, Atlanta Chapter, he has served as co-chair for Administration, Retention and Academic Excellence, Project Success, and the College 100 Mentorship Program. He has been a member of United Way's External Funding and Admissions Committee. Esogbue has received numerous commendations from various governments, including the Fulton County and the City of Atlanta, which he serves as a commissioner and vice chair of the Atlanta Sister Cities Commission. He is also the chair of the American Nigerian International Chamber of Commerce.

Esogbue has been noted in Who's Who in Technology, Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Consulting, and most impressive, Who's Who in the World. He was elected in 1972 as Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE and has been short-listed for the rank of Fellow of IEEE, as well as for the Nigerian Academy of Sciences. In 1996, he was awarded the First Mentor of the Decade Award from the Office of Minority Affairs at Tech. Esogbue, who was a three year letterman in soccer at UCLA and member of the PAC 100 All Conference Soccer Team, is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Georgia Tech Athletic Association.

Asked if there was a special moment or a moment when he felt "complete" with his career, Esogbue answered, "Being the first winner of the Golden Torch Lifetime Achievement in Education Award of the National Society of Black Engineers. I accepted that award with infinite pleasure and yet humility. It was particularly special because the presentation was made in an Academy Award system atmosphere in Kansas City in March this year, by one of my highly regarded mentees, Dr. Gary S. May, who is an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering here at Georgia Tech." In his acceptance speech, he noted that "one of the fringe benefits of being an academician is being rewarded with awards for doing what you truly love to do and an avocation of sorts, and for producing generations of leaders." Among his most treasured achievements is serving as the Founding Advisor (since 1976) of the celebrated Georgia Tech Society of Black Engineers, which has won far more national honors than any other chapter of the National Society of Black Engineers. He also considers as gratifying his role "as the author of a 1984 road map for Georgia Tech's Affirmative Action (Faculty) Plan, which studied and developed a plan to increase the number of minority faculty from a paltry value of four to more than seven times that number in 15 years. Georgia Tech is now in the enviable position of having the highest number of black faculty of any majority engineering school, one of the highest producers of black master's and doctoral students in engineering in the United States, and the top institutional choice for matriculating black graduate students. It was clearly not the case in the 1970s and 80s. This is significant progress," he added.

The fall of Doreen's senior year, it all came to a grinding halt. A family tragedy shattered her world, plunging her into depression and threatening to destroy her hard-earned future. But for the faith of one professor, she was ready to drop out of Tech and forfeit her dream to be an industrial engineer. Doreen tells her story now to honor ISyE Professor Faiz Al-Khayyal and the many other professors like him who reach beyond their students' failures to understand their pain. In doing so, they help lost individuals rediscover the confidence and ability they need to persevere.

Doreen's story was particularly painful. Her mother, a longtime MS sufferer, succumbed to the emotional stress of her illness and took her own life. The family was racked with questions and guilt. Her death followed within a few years of the death of Doreen's brother at the age of 24. It was the beginning of fall quarter, so after leaving a week for the funeral, Doreen returned to a full load of classes. But her heart wasn't in it.

"I didn't share my circumstances with the faculty" she remembers, "I didn't want any special treatment. It was then that I met Dr. Al-Khayyal in Operations Research. I had failed his first test, really bad, as I just couldn't crack a book after my mom's death."

"I'll never forget him bringing me into his office and saying, 'Seaquist, I expect more from you. What is going on?," she continues. "I pretended to be numb to the whole process, but turned around at the last moment and shared in confidence with him that my mother had passed away, with no further details. From that point on, Dr. Al-Khayyal said that if I worked hard, I could pull my grade up. He gave me no free lunches, and I worked very hard in his class."

She eventually got a B. "It was knowing that I could confide in a teacher, and that he believed in me, supported me, and was there to go through any questions I had that made all the difference in the world," she says.

The rest of Doreen's senior year was a blur, but she graduated and has worked with McDonnell Douglas/Boeing for 17 years. Her contributions have earned her numerous awards and accolades. She's now working on her MBA. After avoiding campus for 15 years because of the painful memories, Doreen's been back twice, meeting Tech's star quarterback Joe Hamilton on her most recent visit. Her California license plate proudly reads "JOJATEK".

Doreen is married to another Boeing employee, Eric Hogan, whom she met on the production line. She remains close to her father and her brother, Don, and is actively involved in her church. She would like to hear from other Georgia Tech graduates at dhogan.ie83@gtahzmni.org.

During that awful year, Doreen made Dr. Al-Khayyal a seashell plaque, which still hangs in his office today. I share this story every now and again with people to share the human spirit," she says, "and how necessary is sometimes to give people second chances."

She adds, "It also signifies that professors not only have brains, but hearts."

E-business awards are a new addition to Ernst & Young's annual awards. As with the traditional business categories, e-business winners must be primarily responsible for the growth of a company. Companies must have operated for at least two years and show a profit. In publicly held companies, the founder must be an active member in top management. He or she must possess first mover advantage, or have established a recognized digital brand.

Rackley was the founder, chairman, and CEO of Atlanta-based nFront, Inc., a leading provider of Internet banking services for small to mid-size financial institutions, which merged with Digital Insight in February 2000. He possesses a comprehesive background in both software development and banking technology and is considered an authority on bank technology issues.

"I was honored to be nominated and honored to win. In the past few years, we've grown from one employee to more than 800," Rackley said, noting that his company growth fully embraced the whole entrepreneurial spirit. "A lot of companies are success stories, but only a few entrepreneurs stay from concept all the way through. I've enjoyed all the pieces at every stage."

Rackley is a director of the Alexander Tharpe Fund and the Technology Executives Roundtable board and serves on the ISyE Advisory Board.

Either way, it's a long climb for a guy who has already accomplished what many can only dream. And it's especially unusual circumstances for a Tech graduate, who could be living comfortably on a high-figure salary to be living in motels in successive small Southern cities. The 25-year-old Yankosky, a native of Springfield, Virginia, has set a lot of goals for himself, and it's the light at the end of the tunnel that keeps him going. School already seems like a long time ago. He completed work on his master's in February just days before reporting to spring training. Recipient of a prestigious NASA fellowship, his graduate work focused on the Cockpit Display of Traffic Information in Airplanes, a facet of human-machine systems. Yankosky teamed with ISyE professor Dr. Amy Pritchett to add information to the cockpit's display. The ultimate goal is to increase the level of the pilot's responsibility, without taking any responsibility away from the controllers. This makes the skies safer for everyone.

"We hope to give pilots a better level of understanding of what is going on around them in the traffic flow in the air," he explains. "Additionally, we created new operations that are not currently performed by pilots in air traffic control. The two things we're having the pilots do are now being done by controllers. So what we're trying to do is give the pilot more information in the cockpit by virtue of displays and procedures instead of having to rely so heavily on the controllers and the controllers' commands to execute."

"The two new operations during their arrival routes are maintaining in-trail separation from another aircraft and having pilots merge their aircraft behind another aircraft to a common arrival stream to the airport," he says. "Our results showed that this research warrants more investigation, and we're very excited about the prospect of having this work become incorporated in the near future."

Aiding Yankosky all the way was Dr. Pritchett, whom he quickly names as a favorite professor. "She made all this possible. She's a dynamic individual "very understanding of my schedule and willing to work with me. We met when I was looking for a research program in human-machine systems. She told me this was the luckiest day of my life." Lucky, because Dr. Pritchett had just received a grant from NASA, and she needed a graduate student.

Yankosky also has high praise for Dr. Alex Kirlik, who introduced him to human-machine systems. "I always made it to his class. He made it fun. He's the kind of professor that is invaluable to the institution "he gets students excited."

Despite the dual life he's led for the past several years, Yankosky is still debating connections between baseball and engineering. "People accuse college players of being analytical, but I don't see that. What I do see is the importance of the discipline and time management skills I acquired at Tech. We played up to five games a week during the season as well as attended classes. In some ways this is easier."

He hasn't run into too many other engineers on the field, either. "I haven't seen anyone else with an engineering degree. There are a few out here with degrees, and a few who are close, but not in engineering. Even at Tech, all the players were in management," he remembers. "There are plenty of smart players out here, though. Many made the choice to go professional straight out of high school because of financial or other personal reasons."

Most of Yankosky's Tech memories include baseball. "I really enjoyed the experience of college baseball as a whole," he says. "I made friends for life at Tech. I had the opportunity to sign professional after high school, but this was the best move I could have made. Georgia Tech's been great to me, and I hope I can represent it well."

In fact, his trip to the professional mound was delayed more than the four years he originally planned. Injured as a freshman, he still had a year of eligibility left when he completed his bachelor's in 1997. No professional team came calling, so he opted for a fifth year of college ball. On the field that year he led Tech to a 41-22 record, a berth in the finals of the NCAA Midwest Regional, and a final national ranking of 15. He finished his college baseball career with a 25-4 record, the third highest winning percentage of any pitcher in Tech history.

Not that baseball was the only thing he accomplished at Tech. Yankosky made GTE Academic All-America, twice, and was on the ACC honor roll every year. He earned Georgia Tech's Total Person Athlete Award, the highest honor given to student-athletes. He finished his bachelor's with a 3.6 GPA and his master's with a 4.0. His personal life includes his wife Shannon, an auditor for Arthur Andersen. "She makes the money," he laughs, and two cats.

So what's next for a guy with the future in the palm of his hand? "I wish I could tell you," he says. "Right now I'm 100 percent devoted to baseball." He's interviewed with a company that understands the needs of his split personality, but the possibility of fall ball may make that impossible. "I don't want to burn any bridges," he adds.

Yankosky was once quoted as saying his goal at Tech was "to make sure that I leave this institution with having contributed something both academically and athletically." Yellow Jackets have to agree - Yankosky is destined to soar.