Wing Aviation Founder, Retired OSU President
Karen Holbrook, recently retired
president of Ohio State University, and John Wing, founder and
chairman of Wing Aviation, have been named to the Embry-Riddle
Aeronautical University Board of Trustees. ERAU tells ANN the
appointments came at the Board’s June 8 meeting.
Wing is a former vice chairman of Embry-Riddle’s Board of
Trustees. Holbrook recently served as a member of the Board of
Trustees and the President’s Advisory Board. She was the
guest speaker at the university’s May 2007 commencement
ceremony in Daytona Beach, at which she was awarded the Eagle of
Aviation Award for her significant contributions to aviation.
“We’re pleased to welcome back Karen and John as
highly valued trustees,” said Jim Henderson, chairman of the
Board. “Both are well-versed in Embry-Riddle topics and bring
to the table an impressive history of expertise and leadership in
their individual sectors.”
Karen Holbrook was the president of Ohio State, the largest
university in the nation, from 2002 to June 2007. Ohio State is
ranked by US News & World Report as one of the country’s
top 20 public universities, with a reputation for excellence in
both academics and athletics.
At Ohio State, Holbrook made cutting-edge research a priority
and an integral part of the educational process at all levels of
the university. As a result, Ohio State’s sponsored research
funding topped $652 million, an all-time high, with $100 million
earmarked for 10 high-impact research projects such as climate
change and public health preparedness. In the category of research
expenditures, the National Science Foundation now ranks Ohio State
eighth in the nation among public universities.
John Wing is the founder and chairman of Wing Aviation, a
full-service aviation company that supports principally the
corporate jet and airline markets. The company provides
maintenance, avionics, and paint and interior services for civilian
and military customers worldwide and operates its own fleet of
Gulfstream jets. Wing Aviation is headquartered at Lone Star
Executive Airport in Conroe, TX.
Since the 1980s, Wing has been recognized as a world leader in
the creation of the independent power industry. He founded and led
The Wing Group, a developer of multibillion-dollar power projects
worldwide. These projects included Teesside in the United Kingdom,
the largest global energy project of the 1990s, as well as a
$700-million project in Turkey, the first-ever privatized power
project in the Middle East. The Wing Group is known for its
innovation and successes, as well as its use of personnel with
military backgrounds in most key positions.
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. The university
educates more than 34,000 students annually in its undergraduate
and graduate programs at residential campuses in Prescott, AZ, and
Daytona Beach, FL, through the Worldwide Campus at more than 130
centers in the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Middle East,
and through online learning.
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