Awards 2010

AWARD OF ACHIEVEMENT CONTRIBUTION TO THE NINETY-NINES — Fran Strubeck

Flirtations with airports and flight started when I was a youngster.   A romance in 1994 brought me to the skies when a friend, now my husband, asked if I would be interested in learning to fly.  The word “no” is not in my vocabulary.  The next day my flight training began in the Newark, NJ airspace.  The North Jersey 99s at Lincoln Park Airport provided me the first introduction to a variety of programs they sponsored and to their weekly social gatherings for hanger talk.   After a move to El Centro, CA in 1995, my flight training was completed with the award of my Private Pilot license at the Jackie Cochran Airport, Thermal, CA.  I was thrilled and in awe of now being a  Ninety-Nines and part of the Amelia Earhart legacy.  I was inspired by the achievements of its pilots and the goals of the organization.  The enthusiasm of the members ignited my desire to do whatever I could to support the organization.  I dabbled in all kinds of flying adventures and flying activities.  When the opportunity came to use my computer skills, I designed and became the administrator for two web sites for my chapter, Imperial So-Lo.  This was an introduction to fund raising to sell thirty Tyvek products for the chapter.  The next major project was to put the financial records for the 99s Endowment Fund in QuickBooks while being its treasurer.  That was followed by the research and development of three PowerPoint presentations about the History of Women in Flight, the History of the Powder Puff Derby and What We are All About.  When the Tucson 99s Chapter needed a newsletter editor, it appeared to be an interesting challenge so I volunteered.  I have made it a goal to do as much as I can to help and support the 99s in any way that I can.  

After raising three boys, having a 28 year professional career in education, computers and technology,  surviving ovarian cancer in 1991, then changing direction with my own business to being a computer consultant/trainer, I really thought I had done it all until flying knocked on my door.  My wings have taken me down many wonderful and rewarding avenues I would never have dreamed of.  I love the adventure it affords me and enjoy the limitless opportunities to soar in many different directions.  I am very proud to be a 99 and grateful that I have been able to serve in many different capacities.   I shall always be thankful for that first flying lesson, to Mari Hurley, Imperial So-Lo Chapter Chair who took me under her wing and to all the Ninety-Nines who have spurred me on to greater heights than I could have ever imagined.  
 

PRESIDENT'S AWARD — Susan Loricchio

Born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, Susan’s fascination with aviation began at an early age. She was intrigued by the little red and yellow planes that popped over the trees from a private airfield behind their summer home. Her first book purchase in grammar school was God is My Co-Pilot, by Col. Robert Scott, never imagining that years later he would become a friend.

Before graduating from the Hartt School with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance, her piano professor told her of his visit to Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome in New York, suggesting she go for the WWI and Pioneer Aircraft Show. Eventually she made that trip and took her first plane ride, in the 1929 Standard mail plane. She was petrified, yet determined to find a way to learn to fly. She got her Private ASEL Certificate in 1992 and shortly thereafter she joined the North Jersey Chapter of The Ninety-Nines. In 2008 Susan took the 240 hour 121 Aircraft Dispatch course at FlightSafety, Inc-LGA, and received her FAA Dispatch Airman Certificate in 2009.

Susan makes aviation events happen! In February 2010 she coordinated a Lockheed Martin F35 Briefing at Lincoln Park Airport (N07), engaging former F16 fighter pilots, now with the Joint Strike Fighter program, to brief pilots on the aircraft’s cutting edge performance. In 2006 Susan engaged SpaceShipOne’s civilian astronaut and winner of the $10 million Ansari X Prize, Brian Binnie as the featured guest for the Lincoln Park Airport Open House, NJ, to speak about civilian space flight.

After the 9/11 tragedy Susan volunteered for Flight across America 2002. She became East Coast Coordinator of the unprecedented aviation tribute memorializing the victims. Fifty-two GA aircraft, one from each State, DC and Puerto Rico, flew cross-country with their state flags and took part in an "Honor Flight" down the Hudson River past Ground Zero. A solemn ceremony on the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, followed.

As Aviation Coordinator, in October 2009 Susan arranged logistics for Fox Searchlight’s press conference for the movie AMELIA, at Essex County Airport, NJ. The Electra Jr was flown in and on display, actress Hilary Swank, director Mira Nair, authors Elgin Long and Susan Butler attended. Representing The 99s were President, Susan Larson and members from across the US, Canada, and Germany. Fox Searchlight generously donated many of the movie props to the Amelia Earhart Birthplace Museum. It is primarily for this effort that Susan is the 2010 recipient of The Ninety-Nines President’s Award.

Susan’s dedication to promoting aviation is boundless, linking the pilot community with the general public at local, national, and international levels, and always involving The Ninety-Nines.

GEORGE PALMER PUTNAM AWARD — John "Ray" Copeland

John R. "Ray" Copeland is a retired Electrical Engineer, and a part-time consultant, with career accomplishments in radar-target classification theory, active antennas, and computer applications to real-time industrial process control. Dr. Copeland has been a founder or a principal officer of three different process-control companies, supplying control systems to numerous industries, including chemicals, plastics, food, pharmaceuticals, water treatment, automotive and discrete-parts manufacturing and testing, and both nuclear and geothermal power generation, to name a few.

Ray is married to Constance L. Copeland, a retired chemist and a founding member of the Scioto Valley Chapter of the Ninety Nines. They have three grown children and eight grandchildren.

Ray learned to fly more than half a century ago while studying engineering in college, and thinks he enamored himself to Connie by taking her on flying dates. Connie herself earned her own pilot rating in 1964, and she likes to say that they raised their three children across the back seat of their Cessna 182. (It's not exactly true, but it makes for a good story.)

Ray and Connie have owned several single-engine and twin-engine airplanes over the years, and they currently enjoy flying their Cessna 340 for vacations and fun, as well as for supporting Scioto Valley Chapter activities.
 

AWARD OF MERIT— LT. Phillip Dalton

Philip Dalton will long be remembered by pilots, navigators, and bombardiers as the inventor of the E-6B Dalton Dead Reckoning Computer on which he held the original patent.  
 
In June, 1924, Phil received his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Physics from Cornell University and just eight months later in February, 1925, earned his Master's Degree in Physics from Princeton University Graduate College.  In 1930 after doing his PhD thesis in Artillery Fire Control at Harvard University,  he resigned his Army commission and enlisted in the Navy as a Seaman Second Class, attended flight school in Pensacola, FL, and received his wings on June 24, 1931.  

Phil had an unusual capability for inventing mechanical devices.  Before joining the Navy, he was active in developing a device for pilots to use to determine where they were and where they were going ("dead reckoning").  For years he continued his development and improvement of these devices and was awarded numerous patents for them.  In 1933 he originally designed a compact pocket-sized aircraft time-speed-distance computer.  Later that year he improved it and called it the "Dalton Aerial Dead Reckoning Slide Rule Model B."  In 1934 he invented the Aircraft Navigational Computer, Mark 7.  In 1937 at the request of the Army Air Corps, he improved this as his E-1B.  He continued to improve this idea for the Army, the Navy, and the Royal Air Force (One of his inventions was used extensively in the Battle for Britain.) until his E-6B Dalton Dead Reckoning Computer was designed in 1940.  It subsequently became the standard for use by both the Army and Navy.

In November, 1940, Phil was called to active duty and assigned as a flight instructor at Anacostia Naval Reserve Air Base.  On July 24, 1941, while on a training flight, he and his student crashed to their deaths.  Phil was survived by his wife, Margaret Clark Dalton.  Just prior to his death, Phil had been studying dive bombing ballistics and sighting devices.
 

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AWARD OF INSPIRATION — Carolyn Grangaard Smith

I was born and raised in Wisconsin.  I attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and received my BA in history.  I then attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and received my MA in library science.  In pursuit of my first professional position as a librarian, I moved to Nevada where I met my husband Larry.  And, earned my private pilot certificate.

My husband’s career in the military and the FAA has moved us around a lot in our life.  We’ve lived in a total of seven states.  Our daughter Erin was born in Illinois but grew up in Virginia and Pennsylvania.  She now is finishing her junior year at Mary Baldwin College in Virginia.  But because of all these moves, I’ve had the good fortune to work in a wide variety of public, agricultural, and historical libraries.  But probably the two jobs closest to my heart were my position as librarian for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) for 6 years and my current job as librarian of the FAA Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center Library in Oklahoma City.

Through most of these moves, I’ve managed to keep flying.  While with AOPA, I earned my seaplane rating and also flew my first Air Race Classic in 2003 with another pilot from AOPA.  It was the Centennial of Flight and our final fly-by was past the Wright Memorial at First Flight…what a thrill!  I flew the Air Race Classic again in 200 6 and plan on flying as many more as I can manage.

I joined The 99s when I lived on the East Coast and when my husband’s career with the FAA brought us to Oklahoma City, I was recruited as a volunteer at the 99s Museum of Women Pilots by Margie Richison.  Thinking that my background in library science and work in historical and aviation libraries may be of use, I said “Of course.”  I’ve volunteered at the Museum since 2003 and am currently serving my 2nd term on its Board of Trustees.  It’s been a great experience and I have seen many changes to the Museum, all of them designed to better tell the fascinating history of women pilots. 

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AWARD OF ACHIEVEMENT CONTRIBUTION HUMANITARIAN EFFORTS  — Dr. Anne Spoerry

 

At the outset of World War II, Dr. Anne Spoerry was a medical resident at a Paris hospital.  She joined the French  Resistance only to be captured by the occupying Germans.  Two years of imprisonment at the Ravensbruck concentration camp left her with a need to rediscover herself and heal her soul.  Earning a diploma in tropical medicine, she set out for Africa in 1948.  This was the beginning of an amazing career of humanitarian service.  

Female bush doctors were rare in those days; Anne had to struggle for acceptance.  She became more effective by learning to fly.  Initially delivering medical supplies, she soon established a caseload of thousands of patients throughout northern Kenya. The many communities she served cut and cleared airstrips for her.

Although Anne joined the African Medical and Research Foundation and directed  a Mobile Medical Unit, her doctoring remained personal and local.  In many areas the sole MD, she often supported her clinics with her own funds.  As a rule, she examined patients right at the airstrip in the shade of her plane’s wing.  As well as treating specific ailments, Anne did much to educate the local people, focusing heavily on prevention of disease.  Hygiene and vaccination were especially important to her.  Mother and child care were an important specialty.  

 Dr. Anne Spoerry  passed away in1999 at the age of 80.  She is remembered as a courageous champion of humanitarianism in Africa, in the world medical profession, and in the aviation world. Her spirit lives on through the Anne Spoerry Sailing Doctors at www.sailingdoctors.org.


 

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Updated 6/9/10