NEWS EVENT

Sir Stuart Matthews Speaks at Embry-Riddle Worldwide Commencement and Receives Honorary Degree

Daytona Beach, FL, May 4, 2009 – Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University – Worldwide Campus held commencement ceremonies for 348 students on Saturday, May 2, 2009 in the ICI Center of the Daytona Beach Campus.

Commencement speaker Sir Stuart Matthews was awarded the first Worldwide Campus honorary doctorate in aviation degree for his significant contribution to the aviation industry.

“Our graduating students were impressed with a speaker of this caliber who is internationally renowned in the aviation industry,” said Martin Smith, executive vice president, Worldwide Campus.

“Sir Stuart Matthews has been a leading advocate of aviation safety for decades. We were honored to have him as a speaker,” said John Watret, Ph.D., associate vice president and chief academic officer, Worldwide Campus.

Matthews began his full-time aviation career with the De Havilland Aircraft Company in 1953 and he retired in early 2007 after 53 years continuous experience in the aircraft manufacturing and air transport industries, both in Europe and North America. As an engineer in the manufacturing industry Matthews helped build the Comet, the world’s first jet airliner as well as the Vampire, the last wooden jet fighter aircraft. In the air transport industry he held a number of progressively senior positions culminating as the General Manager responsible for all corporate planning at the former British Caledonian Airways.

In 1974 he was invited by Fokker Aircraft, based in the Netherlands, to set up its subsidiary marketing company in North America and ran this organization for the next 20 years. His biggest success during this time was the sale of 150 commercial jet airliners to American Airlines. Valued at several billion dollars it was not only the company’s largest order ever, but the largest single commercial order ever booked by the Netherlands’ industry. Upon his retirement from Fokker in 1994 he was elected President and CEO of the Flight Safety Foundation, a major international non-profit organization devoted to the continuous improvement of aviation safety. In this capacity, he traveled the world promoting methods and best practices for enhancing the safety of aviation. While he retired from this position early in 2007, he continues to speak at aviation meetings and is a special consultant to the Aviation Safety Council of Taiwan. He is well known throughout the worldwide aviation industry and has been recognized internationally as a leading aviation safety expert. He is a Chartered Engineer with a degree in aeronautical and mechanical engineering.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society (U.K.); a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport (U.K.) and an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (U.S.). He has served on various select government committees in both the United States and Europe dealing with aviation safety matters, as well as safety in other industries. In 1994 he was honored by the Queen of the Netherlands when he was knighted in the Order of Orange Nassau for his services to aviation, an honor recognized by his native United Kingdom. He was also decorated by the Russian Federation for his assistance in helping to re-establish the safety of Russian aviation following the fall of the Soviet Union.

In addition, he has received numerous other awards. In 2005 he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of the Aviation Safety Foundation of Australia and received a similar honor from the French National Air and Space Academy. Other awards that he has received include the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators’ Cumberbatch Trophy (U.K.); the National Business Aviation Association’s Meritorious Service to Aviation Award (U.S.); the International Federation of Airworthiness’ Sir Frank Whittle Safety Award (U.K.); the Great Gold Medal of L’Aero Club de France; the Sukhoi Gold Medal from Russian Federation and a Citation from the Interstate Aviation Commission (MAK) of the Confederation of Independent States.

Matthews is married to Kaye Adams and lives in Arlington, Virginia. While aviation has been his life, in his spare time, he is an avid boater and enjoys yachting on the Chesapeake Bay.

Embry-Riddle Worldwide began in 1970 as a branch of the Daytona Beach Campus in Ft. Rucker, Ala., with 20 students, primarily military working adults. Since then, the program has become one of the largest off-campus, regionally accredited colleges in the United States, with over 45,000 alumni. The Worldwide organization educates more than 27,000 students through classroom, online, or hybrid undergraduate and graduate degree and certificate programs.

Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, the world’s largest, fully accredited university specializing in aviation and aerospace, offers more than 30 degree programs in its colleges of Arts and Sciences, Aviation, Business, and Engineering, educating more than 34,000 students annually in undergraduate and graduate programs. Doctoral programs in aviation and in engineering physics are pending approval by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) for the University to offer programs at the doctoral level. Embry-Riddle educates students at residential campuses in Prescott, AZ, and Daytona Beach, FL, through the Worldwide Campus at more than 130 campus centers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East, and through online learning. For more information, visit www.embryriddle.edu.