Last Thursday, the Dee Howard Foundation hosted its third San Antonio Aviation and Aerospace Hall of Fame at the GDC Technics hangar at Port San Antonio.
San Antonio Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Richard Perez was the emcee for the evening, where four individuals who have influenced the industry in their careers were honored: Lt. Col. James “Robbie” Robinson (USAF Ret.), Edgar Gardner Tobin (deceased), James L. Burch, Ph.D., Marillyn A. Hewson. Biographies of the inductees are listed on the event’s website. The keynote speaker was Dr. Alan Stern, a planetary scientist at Southwest Research Institute who leads NASA’s New Horizons mission that successfully explored the Pluto system and is now exploring Kuiper Belt—the farthest exploration in the history of humankind.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg opened the event on Thursday evening, which hosted more than 600 guests and included two Tuskegee Airman and past award recipients. A new award recognizing excellence in STEM teaching was presented to Randall Ohman, a 6th grade teacher at JSTEM Academy in Judson ISD.
Several aircraft were on display in the GDC Technics hangar. The Hall of Fame dinner was started in 2016 by Chair of the Dee Howard Foundation (DHF) Wayne Fagan to honor San Antonio’s Aviation and Aerospace history and to nurture our future generations of innovators. DHF is a 501(c)(3) Texas nonprofit, an all-volunteer organization, and the net proceeds from the Hall of Fame are primarily used to fund the DHF Pre-K thru 12 initiative focused on students from under served areas of our community.
