Mike Holman, left, leads a discussion at the UTC Challenger STEM Learning Center during the Chattanooga Engineers Club’s 100th anniversary event on March 25. Photo by Angela Foster.
One hundred years ago in Chattanooga, local members of a profession that impacts countless facets of everyday life in the Scenic City chose to create a professional association, and the Chattanooga Engineers Club was born.
Planning of the group’s year-long celebration of its March 2024 centennial has been led by Dr. Greg Sedrick, former dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, where anniversary kickoff festivities were hosted on Monday, March 25.
At the UTC Challenger Center, club members, UTC engineering students and faculty, and local community members toured the hands-on laboratory and site of tribute and memorial to the crew of the NASA space shuttle Challenger, lost in a fatal explosion in 1986.
The UTC facility is one of 35 Challenger Centers worldwide that also work to ignite a passion for STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in the next generation of leaders and innovators. The Chattanooga Challenger Center was one of the first to open, and it celebrates 30 years of operation in 2024.
In honor of the Chattanooga Engineers Club centennial, the Challenger Center featured a special exhibit of local artifacts from the past 100 years of engineering and the engineering club in the Tennessee Valley. Participants also visited with guest host Mike Holman, a registered professional engineer and a fellow of the American Society for Engineering Management.
Holman’s career includes serving as a junior engineer in the U.S. Space Shuttle Program— and recently as senior manager for Northrop Grumman’s strategic NASA launch vehicle programs, including the Space Launch System for the Artemis 1 return mission to the moon. Holman is safety and mission assurance chief engineer for Northrop Grumman.
Following the Challenger Center visit, guests gathered in the Benwood Auditorium inside the UTC Engineering and Computer Science building to hear from TVA Senior Vice President for Power Operations Jacinda Woodward on engineering’s past and future in the Tennessee Valley.
Among the highlights of “the first hundred years of engineering and entrepreneurial spirit” in Chattanooga and the Tennessee Valley, as noted in information prepared by the Chattanooga Engineers Club (CEC), are “the first Coca-Cola bottler, birthplace of medical remedies Allegra and Rolaids, the tow truck and many others.”
Chattanooga is “the first Gig city in the U.S. and is home of Moon Pies, Double Cola and Little Debbie Snack cakes. The next hundred years in the Tennessee Valley will include the nation’s first distribution of small modular nuclear reactors, the impact of Artificial Intelligence as well as virtual and augmented reality technologies.
“The contributions of the engineering and science community for these entrepreneurial efforts have earned Chattanooga’s title, ‘Dynamo of Dixie,’ for both the past and no doubt the future hundred years.”
Since 2020, CEC has distributed engineering scholarships and educational grants from a large bequest from the estate of Almeda and Earl Lee Frazier of Soddy Daisy, Tennessee. Almeda Frazier was CEC president in 1981 and an active member for decades. The Community Foundation of Greater Chattanooga administers the scholarship program in consultation with CEC leadership. The group also funds a $10,000 annual grant to the UC Foundation for distributing as scholarships to committed engineering students.
Attendees at the Chattanooga Engineers Club 100th anniversary celebration check out the UTC Challenger STEM Learning Center.
