70 AVIATION WEEK & SPACE TECHNOLOGY/MARCH 30-APRIL 12, 2015 AviationWeek.com/awstT
he United States military service academies are among
the country’s finest institutions of higher learning and its
best investments in assuring the country remains in the glob-
al forefront, both technologically and militarily. No fields of
endeavor have benefited more from the discipline, curiosity,
natural intelligence and determination embodied in the acad-
emies’ graduates than the aerospace and defense industries.
In recognition of the foregoing, Aviation Week has long
sponsored the Tomorrow’s Leaders Awards, including them
within the Laureates program. These awards recognize
members of the academies who have demonstrated overall
excellence as well as a keen interest in pursuing various ca-
reers in aerospace.
Quite appropriately, presenting the awards this year wasNASA Administrator Charles Bolden. A graduate of the U.S.
Naval Academy, Bolden exemplifies the heights to which To-
morrow’s Leaders can rise and the contributions they can
make.
After being commissioned as a second lieutenant in the
U.S. Marine Corps, Bolden earned his wings of gold, flew
100 combat sorties in Southeast Asia, served as a military
test pilot and later as a NASA astronaut with four missions
into space, twice as the shuttle mission commander. Subse-
quently, he was deputy commandant at Annapolis, and then
commander of the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, rising to the
rank of major general by the time President Barack Obama
asked him to take over NASA in 2009.
“I am proud to be a product of the U.S. Naval Academy and
am still amazed by the opportunities that came my way as a
result,” he told the Laureate attendees. “And throughout my
career it’s been a distinct honor to serve with graduates of
the other academies whose contributions to this community
and the nation have been monumental.”He then called to the stage this year’s award recipients:
Cadet Jacquelyn Susanne Kubicko, a junior at the U.S.
Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, where
her 4.0 GPA put her first in her class. A member of the Alpha
Lambda Delta National Honor Society, she achieved the high-
est academic standing in advanced chemistry and advanced
physics, and won the Class of 2009 writing award for her
powerful and efective prose. And she holds a place on the
Board of Trustees list for her academic, military and athletic
excellence.
Cadet Lt. Andrew Nicholas Ford: The son of a career Air
Force ofcer, he was born in Shaw AFB in South Carolina and
spent the first 13 years of his life on bases ranging from Italy
to Okinawa and many stateside postings in between. After
his father retired from the service, Ford accepted a nomina-
tion to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York,
where he is a mechanical engineering major, with a focus in
aerospace studies. After graduation, he will be assigned to
Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to
serve as an infantry ofcer.
Cadet First Class Rebecca
Esselstein is studying astro-nautical engineering at the
U.S. Air Force Academy in
Colorado Springs, where
she is helping design Fal-
conSAT-8, the academy’s
next ESPA-class satellite.
In addition, she conducted research on exoplanets, and par-
ticipated in a five-week internship at MIT Lincoln Labs last
summer. A member of the track team, she holds the Academy’s
sixth-fastest indoor mark and ninth-fastest outdoor mark in
the 800-meter run. She has been selected as a 2015 Rhodes
Scholar, and hopes to study astrophysics at Oxford after grad-
uating in May. After that, she is aiming for Euro-NATO Joint
Jet Pilot Training at Sheppard AFB in Texas.
Midshipman Lt. Samuel Lacinski is an Aerospace Engineer-
ing major at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland,
and holds a 3.98 average. He is one of only 13 seniors given the
opportunity to engage in independent research. His is entitled
“Multiple Sensor Discrimination of Closely Spaced Objects on
a Ballistic Trajectory.” Lacinski has participated in the local
chapters of the American Institute of Aeronautics and As-
tronautics and the Golden Key National Honor Society. He is
also a member of the Naval Academy Flying Squadron. After
graduating in May, he will report to NAS Pensacola, Florida,
to begin pilot training. cLAUREATES 2015Tomorrow’s Leaders
CHRIS ZIMMER
Uniform Achievers
NASA Administrator
Charles Bolden, Jr.
(second from left) and
Aviation Week President
Greg Hamilton (far right)
join Tomorrow’s Leaders
Award recipients (left to
right) Andrew Nicholas Ford
(USMA), Jacquelyn S.
Kubicko (USCGA),
Samuel Lacinski (USNA)
and Rebecca A. Esselstein
(USAFA).