18 people you didn't know were engineers

8/13/2019 18 People You Didn't Know Were Engineers

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18 People You Didn't Know Were Engineers

Charles Murray, Senior Technical Editor, Electronics & Test4/23/2013

Engineers are a talented bunch. And although their talents typically take them to a quiet office or a lab, that's not

always so. Sometimes, their gifts place them in the limelight, and we tend to forget where they started.

Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover, for example, took their talents to the top spot in world politics. Tom Landry used

his analytical skills to become a legendary football coach. And Alfred Hitchcock's innate intelligence launched a

career as history's most recognizable film director.

Of course, there will always be a few who are rumored to be engineers, but aren't. Folklore has it, for example, that

Cindy Crawford, Ashton Kutcher, and Mr. T were engineers. But none were awarded engineering degrees or toiled as

engineers. And Mayim Bialik, best known from Blossomand as Amy Farrah Fowler on The Big Bang Theory, wentfrom child star to earning a PhD in neuroscience from UCLA. She will be speaking this week atDesign West.

Here, we've collected photos of individuals, most of whom earned engineering degrees and then found fame

elsewhere. Did we miss anyone? Tell us in the comments section below. Click the image below to start the

slideshow.
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Filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock directed Psycho, The Birds, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Vertigo, and many other

major movies, but started his working life as an engineer. He studied engineering at the London County Council

School of Engineering and Navigation and worked as a draftsman before launching a career in movies in the 1920s.

(Source: Wikipedia)
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At 6'8" tall and 305 pounds, Eric Fisher of Central Michigan University has the body of an offensive tackle, but the

mind of an engineer. Fisher, who is earning a degree in mechanical engineering, is expected to be a first -round

choice in this year's National Football League draft.

(Source: Tim Fitzgerald/CMU Athletics)


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Tom Scholz, guitarist for the rock band Boston, earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering

from MIT. Scholz worked as a senior product design engineer for Polaroid before launching his music career.


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Former New Hampshire governor John H. Sununu earned Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD degrees in mechanical

engineering from MIT. He also served as the associate dean of the engineering college at Tufts University and as the

White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush. A firm believer in the value of an engineering

education, Sununu told Design News in a 1998 interview: "You can't fake your way through engineering school. No

level of glibness gets you through a thermodynamics exam."


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Academy Award-winning film director Frank Capra is best known for such movies as It Happened One Night, Mr.

Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life, but was educated as an engineer. Capra graduated from the

California Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering.


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Roger Staubach won a Heisman Trophy and a Super Bowl MVP Award, but still managed to squeeze an engineering

degree onto his resume. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Staubach served in Vietnam and didn't start playing

pro football until age 27, but ended up earning a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.


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Technically speaking, Jimmy Carter graduated from the US Naval Academy with an unspecified major (the custom at

the time), but studied reactor technology and nuclear physics in graduate school. He also served as an engineer in

US submarine fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific.


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Dolph Lundgren is best known as the imposing Russian boxer, Ivan Drago, in the 1985 movie Rocky IV, But the

Swedish-born actor and martial artist also holds degrees in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of

Technology in Stockholm and chemistry from Washington State University.


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Host of a nationally syndicated talk show and an author, Montel Williams holds a Bachelor's degree in general

engineering from the US Naval Academy. Williams, who also studied Mandarin Chinese, served as a Naval

intelligence officer specializing in languages.

US Congressman Joe Barton of Texas has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1985. He holds a

Bachelor's in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master's in industrial automation from Purdue

University.

Danny Granger of the National Basketball Association's Indiana Pacers holds a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering

from the University of New Mexico. Granger, who stands 6'8" tall, told nba.com that engineering was his goal as a

youngster. "I wanted to be a civil engineer and I was using basketball as my ticket to get a degree," Granger said.
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Pete Stark was a 40-year member of the US House of Representatives (1973-2013) and was the sixth-most senior

member of Congress when he left office earlier this year. The California congressman received a Bachelor's degree

in general engineering from MIT in 1953.


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Doug Glanville is best known for having played centerfield for the Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers, and Chicago

Cubs, but he also earned a Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Pennsylvania. The

former Ivy League athlete has also served as a color analyst for ESPN, written guest columns for The New YorkTimes, and penned a book, The Game From Where I Stand.


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Former Senator John E. Sununu, son of John H. Sununu, was the youngest member of the US Senate throughout his

six-year term. He earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1986 and 1987,

and an MBA from Harvard in 1991.


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Former US President Herbert Hoover was a globally experienced mining engineer and a graduate of Stanford

University with a degree in geology. He had no experience as an elected official when he ran for president and won in

1928.


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Legendary Dallas Cowboys' football coach Tom Landry earned a Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the

University of Texas and a Master's degree from the University of Houston


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Hollywood legend Hedy Lamarr is the only individual on our list with no formal training in science or engineering, but

she earns a spot for having co-invented and patented a "secret communication system" during World War II. The

technology used frequency hopping as a means to make it harder for enemies to detect or jam radio-guided

torpedoes. It later served as the foundation for the spread spectrum systems that are today employed in Bluetooth

and WiFi networks. Lamarr's invention was not well known until 1997, when she finally received an award from theElectronic Frontier Foundation for her work. Ironically, the movies Lamarr made with Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy,

Judy Garland, and Lana Turner in the 1930s and 1940s have faded, while her frequency-hopping technology lives on

in countless modern products.

18 people you didn't know were engineers

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