Tarbel Honored for Leading the Way in Public Transportation

Brook D. Tarbel '50 has long been making tracks int he City of Tulsa, advocating for user-friendly and efficient public transportation options for people with disabilities. Brook and his wife, Jill, are well-known around town for their professional and community involvement, and the city of Tulsa recently added another honor to the lengthy list of awards and recognitions the Tarbels share.

Earlier this year, Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor proclaimed January 29 "Brook D. Tarbel Day." Not only was Tarbel awarded a commemorative plaque, but Tulsa's main bus station was renamed in his honor. The bustling downtown station at the corner of 4th Street and Denver Avenue is not the "Brook D. Tarbel Denver Avenue Station." This public recognition reflects Tarbel's work raising public awareness of and engineering solutions to universal transportation challenges.

Tarbel is a longtime member and current board chairman of the Metro Tulsa Transit Authority and the first person with a disability to serve on the MTTA board. After a 1969 plane crsh left him paralyzed from the waist down, Tarbel began using a weelchair and developed a strong interest in public transportation. Through his passionate advocacy for people with disabilities, Tarbel met his wife Jill, who also uses a wheelchair as a result of polio she contracted in 1937. Both champion change in the Tulsa area, forming a dynamic team that has helped countless people access public facilities in their city.

After earning his bachelor's degree in petroleum engineering at Mines in 1950, Brook went on to work for Magnolia Petroleum Company, Helmerich & Payne, Inc., and White Shield Oil & Gas Corporation, before founding Tarbel Oil & Gas Corporation in 1971. Tarbel is a World War II veteran who received numerous recognitions, including two Purple Hearts. He is a member of the Society of Professional Engineers and serves on several boards, including the Oklahoma Multiple Sclerosis Society Board and the State Independent Living Council Board. He is also a co-founder of Ability Resources, Inc., a community-based center that assists people with disabilities in attaining personal independence through advocacy, education and service.

McNeils Honored for Service to their Community

At a Thornton fundraising event in March 2007, Charlie ’71 and Judy McNeilwere recognized as the Arapahoe House 2007 Pillars of the Community. The drug, alcohol and behavioral health services facility in Thornton, Colorado, chose to honor the McNeils for their widespread philanthropic commitment throughout the Denver metro area. The couple is involved with numerous community groups and Judy has volunteered her time with Arapahoe House for
more than 10 years. The McNeils helped organize the nonprofit’s Pillars dinner this year, which raised $315,000 to support child and adolescent treatment programs.

Mines has also enjoyed a long partnership with the McNeils—Charlie has chaired both the national President’s Council committee and his class reunion committee, and he currently serves as a member of the Mines Advisory Board. The couple has made significant contributions to the new Student Recreation Center and the facility’s hospitality room bears Charlie’s name. In 1998, Charlie was honored with the Mines Distinguished Achievement Medal. A 1971 mining engineering graduate of the School, Charlie has worked in the energy and mining industries for 35 years. In 1993 he founded NexGen Resources, a privately held natural resource company which invests in an array of subsidiary companies also founded by Charlie. He is currently president and CEO. Before establishing NexGen, McNeil held board, president and senior positions with Kaiser Steel, Kaiser Coal, Perma Resources and CONSOL Energy. He is a co-founder of Trident Resources Corporation, a coal bed methane exploration and development company based out of Calgary, and serves as the group’s director and board chairman.

Judy is involved with philanthropy in the Denver community, serving in leadership positions with the Denver Center Alliance, the Children’s Diabetes Foundation, AWARE, the Central City Opera Guild and Arapahoe House. She presently serves on the Denver Area Public Affairs Council for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Both Judy and Charlie, along with the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes and the Children’s Diabetes Foundation, help chair an annual Halloween party in the Green Center at Mines with the help of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

When Dreams Take Flight

Penny J. Pettigrew ’92 knew she wanted to do spacerelated work long before coming to Colorado School of Mines. Back in high school in San Diego, she was captivated by the idea, but it wasn’t until her sophomore year at Mines when she attended Space Camp in Huntsville, AL, that she realized it was a possibility. Pettigrew was inspired by the many different roles engineers play in the space program and the level of teamwork required. Leading a team of astronauts through a simulated Shuttle mission left a lasting impression: “Everyone depended on everyone else to do their job effectively—it was exhilarating.” Her experience in Huntsville took her back there for graduate studies at the University of Alabama, where her dreams started to become a reality. With NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center at her doorstep, Penny was able to involve herself directly in NASA research. When she graduated, she quickly landed a job there: “I’d been working with NASA engineers onsite for years. They knew my work and knew I was committed.” Since then she’s ascended the ranks rapidly and is now the Ares I First Stage requirements and verification team lead for the next generation space vehicle scheduled to replace the Space Shuttle in 2012. In charge of the team that defines the design specifications for thousands of First Stage components, Pettigrew shoulders a considerable amount of responsibly for the ultimate safety and reliability of the space vehicle. In recognition of her career accomplishments, Penny was recently inducted to the US Space Camp Hall of Fame as part of the inaugural class during a ceremony hosted by William Shatner—famous for his role as Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek series. In her comments at the ceremony, Penny recognized the support of the many who helped her realize her aspirations, her mother being chief among them: “It was she who first encouraged me to pursue my dreams by sending me to Space Camp, and she has continued to support me throughout my life.” Penny lives in Huntsville with her husband, Kyle Hoover, and their one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Aspen.

Revolutionizing Astronomy

Exploring the night sky isn’t what it used to be: high-powered telescopes are more affordable than ever and an increasingly sophisticated understanding of the universe is readily accessed through print and electronic media. By heightening interest in the universe, these conditions have fueled a spectacular growth in amateur astronomy—a phenomenon that is explored in the Timothy Ferris film Seeing in the Dark, which premiered on PBS stations nationwide on September 19.

In his survey of amateur astronomy, Ferris’ film features technology from Software Bisque, the Golden-based astronomy software and hardware company founded in 1990 by Stephen Bisque ’80. In the film, Stephen, along with his three brothers,Thomas, Daniel ’89 and Matthew ’90, all of whom work for Software Bisque, are shown setting up a remote robotically controlled telescope. Software Bisque’s products cover a broad spectrum, offering everything from a student edition of their flagship product called TheSky Astronomy Software, all the way up to remote automated observatory control systems that include the necessary hardware and software. With technology capable of training a telescope located on a mountaintop half way around the world onto a celestial object invisible to the naked eye, and then projecting the resulting image onto the operator’s computer screen, the Bisques have turned astronomy upside down in more ways than one. Software Bisque has recently helped to throw open the gates to the universe a little wider, as their technology is incorporated into
the Seeing in the Dark website (www.pbs.org/seeinginthedark), which enables students and teachers all over the world to view star charts of tonight’s interesting objects, or stargaze on demand through the internet using the robotic telescope they setup at a high-altitude site in New Mexico. For future airings of the film,check the above website. For more information about the Bisque brothers’ company, visit www.bisque.com.