The Huntsville Association of Technical Societies will hold the 2012 Professional of the Year (POY12) Banquet on June 26. Tim Pickens, Huntsville “Rocket Man,” will serve as keynote speaker, and Greg Screws, WHNT news anchor, will host the event as master of ceremonies.

The event begins at 5:30 pm at Bridge Street’s Westin Hotel. Join us at the POY Banquet and network with members from other technical societies, spouses, and friends, and join HATS member societies in recognizing each respective Professional of the Year. HATS will present presented the Moquin Award to one Professional of the Year from this years awardees, named after Joseph C. Moquin and honoring him for lifelong community support of Huntsville area technologists.

Attendance cost is $25 per person for dinner and an evening of celebrating significant contributions across technical disciplines at the Westin.  IEEE Huntsville Section has booked tables and is making a limited number of seats available to Section members and registered guests on a first-come, first-served basis.  Contact Dr Willie Fitzpatrick at wfitzpatrick@ieee.org to RSVP if you would like to attend the banquet.

IEEE Professional of the Year, 2012

Bob BerinatoIEEE Section is honoring Dr. Bob Berinato, Dynetics Chief Scientist, as our 2012 POY.

Dr. Berinato has been employed at Dynetics, Inc., in Huntsville, AL, since 1985 and is currently responsible for analysis of optical, radar, and signal processing systems.

Dr. Bob Berinato came to Huntsville in 1985 after graduating from Georgia Tech with BS Degrees in Applied Physics and Mechanical Engineering. He has been employed at Dynetics since 1985, and currently serves as Chief Research Scientist. His responsibilities include management of Dynetics’ Internal Research and Development program, and providing customer support in the areas of sensor technology and signal processing.

Throughout his professional career, Bob has engaged in part-time graduate work at UAHuntsville, earning his MS and PhD in Electrical Engineering in 1987 and 1993, respectively, and his MS in Applied Mathematics in 2007. He serves as an adjunct associate professor in the ECE Department, and has taught 14 different courses in the communications and signal processing areas since 1995. He has also taught 6 continuing education short courses to the local community.

Bob currently serves as the chairman of the local IEEE Aerospace and Electronic Systems Society, is participating in the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce’s Technology Committee, is a board member of The Schools Foundation, and is a member of Leadership Huntsville / Madison County Class 24.

Dr. Berinato received his BS degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Physics from Georgia Tech (1985), his MS and PhD degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) in 1987 and 1993, respectively, and is currently in the graduate Applied Math program at UAH.

Dr. Berinato is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at UAH teaching courses in Electrical Engineering, and has taught short courses in radar systems, optical and infrared systems, missile seekers, and sensor fusion. Please come join us in honoring our IEEE Professional of the Year and networking with other Section professionals!!

POY Background and Details

The Professional of the Year (POY) banquet provides HATS member organizations the opportunity to publicly recognize one of their own for exceptional professionalism. Each member organization selects a POY and the HATS Awards committee selects one of the POYs as the recipient of the Joseph C. Moquin Award based upon evidence of technical contributions and community service.

Date: Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Time: 5:30-8:00PM (dinner at 6:00PM)
Place: The Westin-Huntsville 6800 Governors West, NW

Master of Ceremonies

Greg Screws co-anchors WHNT News 19 at 6:00 p.m. with Elise Morgan. He and Clarissa McClain also co-anchor WHNT News 19 at 9:00 p.m. on WHNT2. If there is a topic that requires an opinion, Greg will give you one. His favorite saying is “Right or wrong, I am rarely in doubt.”

After leaving Hartselle and realizing higher education was a challenge in addition to being a goal, Greg went to the University of Alabama. His “brush with greatness moment” at the University of Alabama was seeing Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant in a Shoney’s Restaurant. Greg majored in Communications at Alabama and worked at WCFT television before moving to WVTM in Birmingham. Greg’s stop in Birmingham television sparked his love of NASCAR and is also where he realized weathermen rarely pick up the check at lunch.

Greg’s daughter Emily just turned 21 years old, and is a junior at Alabama. Once Greg asked if she wanted to work in television and Emily said “you have to be kidding me.” Emily is a Marketing/Public Relations major at Alabama and is very patient when her father calls her at least three times a day.

Greg is very much in demand as a public speaker. His life experience of covering news, sports, personalities and overcoming life’s difficulties makes for great after dinner and public speaking.

Featured Speaker

Tim Pickens, Dynetics’ chief propulsion engineer and commercial space advisor and Team leader for the Rocket City Space Pioneers
Tim Pickens
If you haven’t heard Tim Pickens speak yet, this is an event you don’t want to miss! Tim Pickens is commercial space advisor and chief propulsion engineer at Dynetics and team leader for the Rocket City Space Pioneers, a team led by Dynetics that is competing in the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE.

Dynetics brought Pickens on board in December 2009 as part of the purchase of the space company he started, Orion Propulsion Inc. With his expertise and vision in the space industry, particularly in the commercial arena, Pickens is responsible for developing innovative space product solutions and expanding Dynetics’ commercial space business.

Pickens started and grew Orion to be a $6.4 million company with 40 employees within five years. Pickens worked in all areas of Orion to run a lean and innovative start-up.

Pickens’ most recent role at Orion was as CEO, as well as the program manager for the development of the reaction control thrusters for the Bigelow Aerospace Sundancer module. These thrusters operate combusting hydrogen and oxygen produced from waste byproducts, a technology that offers the state of the art in space-living recycling.

Before founding Orion, Pickens worked for small hardware-rich aerospace companies in Huntsville, as well as serving as lead propulsion engineer at Scaled Composites on SpaceShipOne, winner of the $10 million X PRIZE.

In addition to being a propulsion engineer, Pickens is an inventor, innovator and educator in his spare time. He has been featured in Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, CNN online articles, and on The Daily Show. Features include his serious company innovations, as well as his fun home hobby efforts such as rocket trucks, rocket bikes and suitcase rockets. He is currently building/testing a jet pack belt that can be seen from time to time flying in Alabama lakes.

Pickens is asked to speak at space and entrepreneurial conferences all over the country to share his views on commercial space and offer his perspective for space start-up businesses.