Russell Genet:  

Hi Redlands HS Class of 1958 In the middle of my Junior Year, 1957, I dropped out of high school, joint the Air Force, learned electronics, and while the rest of you were in your senior year, I was in Morocco, North Africa. It was lots of fun there, but I decided it wasn't cool to be a high school drop out, so I started going to college at night while I was still 17, attending the University of Maryland Overseas. I returned to the States in 1959, taught electronics in Biloxi, Mississippi, and then attended the University of Oklahoma on an Air Force Scholarship, graduating (Electrical Engineering) in 1964. I spent four years as a Lt. and Capt. working on rocket guideance systems at Norton Air Force Base in San Bernardino. The Air Force sent me on a scholarship for a Masters. I was always interested in astronomy, and my electrical engineering interests were applied to first automation of telescopes and observatories. My doctoral degree is in astronomy, and I was the founder and director of the Fairborn Observatory on Mt. Hopkins in southern Arizona for a decade, the planets first fully robotic astronomical observatory. I served as the 51st president of the A...Expand for more