Leadership Lecture Series - 3/17/2003
Steven W. Lindsey
A native of
California, Colonel Lindsey received a bachelor of science degree in engineering
sciences from the U.S. Air Force Academy and a master of science degree in
aeronautical engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology. He was
commissioned a second lieutenant at the US Air Force Academy in 1982. He
received his pilot wings in 1983 at Reese Air Force Base where he qualified in
the RF-4C Phantom II and was assigned to the 12th Tactical Reconnaissance
Squadron at Bergstrom Air Force Base. He served as a combat-ready pilot,
instructor pilot, and academic instructor.
Lindsey later conducted weapons and systems tests in F-16 and F-4 aircraft, served as the deputy director – Advanced Tactical Air Reconnaissance System Joint Test Force and as the 3247th Test Squadron’s F-16 Flight Commander. He was reassigned and was responsible for Air Force weapons certification for the F-16, F-11, A-10, and F-117 aircraft.
Colonel Lindsey was selected by NASA in December 1994 and became an astronaut in 1996. He has served in many capacities at NASA – flight software verification, Astronaut Office representative, glass cockpit Space Shuttle upgrade program, training officer and tested orbiter landing techniques and flying qualities. He has been responsible for designing, testing, and implementing crew interfaces and displays for the $400 million Shuttle Cockpit Avionics Upgrade. More recently, he served as the Chief of International Space Station Operations for the astronaut office, responsible for integrating astronaut, civil service, and contractor activities in providing support to all aspects of the development, testing, crew training and operations of the International Space Station.
A veteran of three space flights, Lindsey has logged over 896 hours in space. He flew as pilot on STS-87 in 1997 and STS-95 in 1998 and was mission commander on STS-104 in 2001. He is assigned to command the crew of STS-119, the 22nd Space Shuttle mission dedicated to the assembly of the International Space Station.
Diane Sawyer
In addition to her Primetime assignment, Diane Sawyer was named co-anchor, with Charles Gibson, of Good Morning America, in 1999. Since the premiere of Primetime Live in 1989, Sawyer has traveled extensively around the Unites States and abroad to report on and investigate a wide range of topics and to interview a diverse group of newsmakers and personalities. Sawyer has a long history of award-winning investigative reports including her investigation of telephone con artists who victimize the elderly and the innocent. She examined life inside a maximum security prison for women, charges of neglect and abuse at state-run institutions for the mentally retarded and unsanitary conditions existing in fast-food restaurants. Sawyer exposed waste and bloat in public school bureaucracies and tracked outlaws who dump toxic waste in backyards.
Sawyer’s exclusive interviews have spanned the breadth of the globe and included such notables as Boris Yeltsin, Prince Rainier of Monaco and the Rabin family in their first in-depth interview after the assassination of Yitzak Rabin. Sawyer interviewed actor Carroll O’Connor on the death of his son and Robert McNamara in his first broadcast interview about the Vietnam War. Her investigative reports and interviews are extensive and diverse.
During the 1989-1990 broadcast season, Sawyer co-anchored a special live broadcast from the White House where she joined President and Mrs. Bush for a tour of the first family’s private living quarters, co-anchored an unprecedented hour-long broadcast from inside the Kremlin as well as the award-winning investigative hour on the bombing of Pan Am Flight No. 103.
For six months in 1995, Sawyer was co-anchor of ABCNEWS magazine, Day One. She is also a substitute anchor for World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and ABC Nightline. Prior to joining ABCNEWS, Sawyer spent nine years at CBS News where she co-anchored for 60 Minutes and CBS Morning News. She was podium correspondent for the 1988 Democratic and Republican National Conventions and floor correspondent for the 1984 conventions.
Ms. Sawyer held several positions in the Nixon administration and was part of the Nixon-Ford transition team. Her career in broadcasting began in 1967 in Kentucky.
Steven A. Wynn
Living in Las
Vegas as a child, Steve Wynn remembers his father putting him to bed and then
slipping out to shoot dice at the Flamingo and the Sands. Only ten years old,
Wynn remembers Las Vegas as a place where horses where hitched to the casino’s
back door. His father opened a bingo parlor in Las Vegas but was not able to get
licensing and returned to Utica, New York. Steve Wynn attended military prep
school and later graduated from University of Pennsylvania, spending weekends
learning about his father’s bingo business. He met Elaine Paschal through one of
his father’s friends and Steve and Elaine were married in 1963 before he
graduated from college. They relocated to Las Vegas in 1967.
Upon arriving in Las Vegas, Wynn soon invested in the Frontier Hotel; but it was sold less than a year later. Wynn had made contact with Las Vegas Banker E. Barry Thomas. Thomas was impressed by the young Wynn and mentored his business career. Working with Thomas, Wynn took over the Golden Nugget and increased profits from $1.1 to $4.2 million. He used the profits to buy a hotel in Atlantic City, tore it down and built the New Jersey Golden Nugget. Throughout the late seventies and early eighties, Wynn participated in many successful real estate dealings. In 1984, Wynn’s estimated worth was $100 million. Mr. Wynn has always believed in strong family values and pioneered the casino-as-family vacation theme.
Wynn continued to invest in Las Vegas hotels and ultimately built and opened the Mirage in 1989 at a cost of $630 million. Other Mirage Resorts include Bellagio in Las Vegas and Beau Rivage in Mississippi.
Mr. Wynn sold
Mirage resorts and now is Chairman of Wynn Reports. He is currently building a
new hotel in Las Vegas and another in Macao. Throughout his business career,
Wynn has been an avid supporter of public service. One example of public service
includes Mirage employees taking classes on site and receiving their high school
diplomas. From that first endeavor, Mirage employees have become active
supporters of community service. He has also been a major supporter of both the
Democratic and Republican parties, making donations to candidates in local,
state and national races.