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D
onald Pettit has traveled from
Silverton, Oregon, to infinity
and beyond—with a stop in
Corvallis in between. As an
earth-bound undergraduate at Oregon
State University, Pettit earned his
bachelor’s degree
in chemical
engineering in 1978
andwent on to
complete doctoral
studies in the same
discipline at the
University of
Arizona in 1983.
Pettit began his
career as a staff
scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory
in Los Alamos, NewMexico, where his
projects included experiments in reduced
gravity fluid flow andmaterials processing,
atmospheric spectroscopy on clouds
seeded from rockets, and fumarole gas
sampling fromvolcanoes. He also solved
problems in detonation physics. He was a
member of the Synthesis Group, which
assembled the technology to return to the
moon and explore Mars, and the Space
Station FreedomRedesign Team.
In 1996, Pettit was selected by the
National Aeronautics & Space
Administration (NASA) to report to the
Johnson Space Center as an astronaut. A
veteran of three spaceflights, Pettit has
loggedmore than 370 days in space and
more than 13 spacewalk hours. He lived
aboard the International Space Station for
more than five months during Expedition
6, was a member of the STS-126 crew, and
again lived aboard the space station for
more than sixmonths as part of the
Expedition 30/31 crew.
Pettit returned to Earth on July 1, 2012,
having launched to the International Space
Station aboard the Soyuz TMA-03M craft
fromKazakhstan. As the NASA flight
engineer, Pettit joined Russian Soyuz
Commander Oleg Kononenko
and European Space Agency
Flight Engineer Andre Kuipers
in docking the shuttle and
restoring the space station
crew complement to six.
Research at the space
station during Pettit’s
deployment marked a new
era of commercial resupply
services from the United
States when the first
commercial cargo SpaceX
Dragon spaceshipwas
launched fromCape
Canaveral Air Force Station in
Florida. Following a series of
maneuverability tests and
abort systems tests, the
capsule was grappled and
berthed using the station’s
robotic arm.
Also during this mission, Pettit used
household objects aboard the space station
to perform a variety of unusual physics
experiments for the video series “Science
Off the Sphere.”Through these
demonstrations, Pettit showedmore than
a million Internet viewers how space
affects scientific principles.
At the end of this most recent mission,
Pettit landed in Kazakhstan after 193 days
in space and orbiting the Earth 3,088 times
and travelingmore than 76millionmiles.
D
avidWest didn’t see a future for
himself on the landwhere his
father raised potatoes and alfalfa
in the southern Oregon farming
community of Merrill. But he did love cars,
so he headed to Oregon State to complete a
degree inmechanical engineering,
focusing on the discipline’s automotive
element.
“I was fascinated
bymechanics,”
saysWest. “Oregon
State offeredme
everything I
wanted— a great
engineering school
and an opportunity
to stay in state.”
After graduating,
West interviewedwith FordMotor
Company, but decided against living in
Detroit. Instead, he took a jobwith Union
Oil in southern California as a research
engineer. “Without my education, I would
never have had that opportunity,” he says.
“I was involved in technical training and
research and everything related directly
back tomy education at OSU.”
After living in the Los Angeles basin for
10 years, West and his
family decided they
didn’t want to spend
their lives in the big
city. “I wanted to get
into business formyself,
something where I
could control my own
destiny,” he says. “I
bought an automobile
salvage business in San Luis Obispo on
California’s central coast.”
e business didwell, but his wife’s
business was doing better. Linda “Charlie”
McFall West (OSU ’69) had started a small
bakery called San Luis Sourdough. Within
a year, business was booming and, seeing
its potential, she pulled her husband’s
energies full-time into the bakery business.
He designed a 25,000 square foot bakery,
giving consideration to workflow,
equipment needs, and purchasing.
“My engineering background really
helpedme,” saysWest.
ree years after its startup, San Luis
Sourdoughwas named the Small Business
Administration’s Small Business of the Year
for California. Six years later, theWests’
company was named the national
intermediate wholesale bakery of the year
by their trade association.
TheWests sold the company to
Earthgrains in 1998. By that time, 125
employees were producing 60,000 loaves
of sourdough bread a day.
“I amproud that we were able to
contribute to society and the economy and
produce a healthy, natural food product
that people wanted,” saysWest. “Anyone
getting into engineering needs to keep all
the doors open, because you never know
where the path is going to lead. It could be
something you never dreamwould be an
opportunity.”
FEBRUARY 22, 2013
G
2013 Oregon Stater Engineering Awards
COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
Oregon State University
9
FEBRUARY 22, 2013
FEBRUARY 22, 2013
B.S. Mechanical Engineering ’69
Founder
San Luis Sourdough
San Luis Obispo, California
B.S. Chemical Engineering ’78
Astronaut
National Aeronautics &SpaceAdministration
LyndonB. Johnson Space Center
Houston, Texas
David T. West
DonaldR. Pettit
HALL OF FAME
HALL OF FAME
“Iwanted to
get into
business for
myself,
something
where I could
control my
owndestiny.”