Notable Members
Tau Beta Pi's membership includes some famous figures in engineering and technology, including 19 nobel laureates:
- Buzz Aldrin, second astronaut to walk on the moon
- Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder
- Michael Bloomberg, founder of Bloomberg L.P. and mayor of New York
- Stephen G. Bowen, astronaut
- Wernher von Braun, rocket scientist
- Frank Capra, movie director
- Leon Cordero, former president of Ecuador
- Seymour Cray, supercomputer pioneer
- Thomas Francis Farrell, Major General, United States Army
- Ernie Fletcher and Paul E. Patton, former governors of Kentucky
- Fred Haise, astronaut
- Lee Iacocca, former Chrysler CEO
- Curtis Lemay, General, United States Air Force
- Michael Oluwagbemi, Frontier Market Strategist & Partner, LoftyInc Allied Partners
- Linus Pauling, two time Nobel prize winner
- Michael Porter, Bishop William Lawrence University Professor at Harvard Business School & Notable Strategist
- Dan Reneau, president of Louisiana Tech University
- Robert S. Langer, David. H. Koch Institute Professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Buddy Tudor, General contractor and real estate developer in Louisiana
Seven astronauts who died on Apollo 1, Space Shuttle Challenger and Space Shuttle Columbia were members of Tau Beta Pi. In their honor, a fellowship has been given out five times (1986, 1987, 1997, 1998, 2004). These astronauts and their chapters are:
- Roger B. Chaffee, Apollo 1, Indiana Alpha 1957
- Gus Grissom, Apollo 1, Indiana Alpha 1950
- Edward White, Apollo 1, Michigan Gamma 1952
- Ellison Onizuka, Challenger, Colorado Beta 1969
- Judith Resnik, Challenger, Pennsylvania Gamma 1970
- Dick Scobee, Challenger, Arizona Alpha 1965
- Rick Husband, Columbia, Texas Beta 1980
Read more about this topic: Tau Beta Pi
Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or members:
“Every notable advance in technique or organization has to be paid for, and in most cases the debit is more or less equivalent to the credit. Except of course when it’s more than equivalent, as it has been with universal education, for example, or wireless, or these damned aeroplanes. In which case, of course, your progress is a step backwards and downwards.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)