Outlook Magazine - Fall 2024

Designed by Barry Bauer (’83, ’92)

Sobering also at times for Bauer is the realization that he has managed projects that “have some of the smartest people on the planet” on them. He led the design team that earlier this year received the Engineers’ Council Distinguished Engineering Project Achievement Award for Lockheed-Martin’s Hypersonic Reference Vehicle Application, developed to support the U.S. Department of Defense-funded University Consortium for Applied Hypersonics — UCAH — involving 119 universities, 214 partners and 2,700 people, funded at $100 million over five years. To enable UCAH, Bauer’s team developed a hypersonic reference vehicle, a software modeling tool that could help shape the next generation of hypersonic flight vehicles, or those flying faster than five times the speed of sound. As a country, “We were behind in hypersonic technology so we began to harness the power of universities to do research and then transition results to industry,” said Bauer, who collaborated with defense leaders and the Senate Armed Services Committee. He also has worked as an adjunct professor for 16 years at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, teaching project and business management. Bauer isn’t a pilot, but aeronautics and going fast seem to be in his blood. After high school, he was an aircraft hydraulics and pneumatics technician on the F-4 and other planes for six years in the Marine Corps. He memorized the planes’ operating systems, one reason he was chosen to land on the USS Enterprise aircraft carrier with a pilot to fix an F-4’s landing gear. He soon realized the big difference between himself, the military pilots and others whose careers were really going places — they had a college education. After serving, Bauer earned an industrial technology degree at UW-Stout. He ran cross country and qualified for nationals; after graduating he competed at a high level for many years in marathons and other races. He returned to campus for a master’s in safety and risk and eventually earned two other master’s degrees and a doctorate. Diplomas in hand, the Durand native began to pursue his true passion, aerospace, landing at Hughes Aircraft before Lockheed-Martin. “My goal has always been to master the job and get ready for the next one. It’s been an amazing journey of discovery,” he said.

(Top) F-22 (Bottom) F-35

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Outlook 2024