Monthly Archives: April 2020

A Flight Lead Student Advisor’s View From Above

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by Martin Kurkchubasche

Me with my best friend Daniel’s 1975 Cessna 172M after flying IFR with him on a rainy day in San Jose, CA. He’s now a CFI at Purdue. Photo taken by my childhood friend turned professional photographer Meredith Williams!

Hi there! I’m Martin Kurkchubasche, a Senior studying Aeronautical Science with a minor in Aviation Business Administration. I’m from San Jose, California and I came to Embry-Riddle Prescott having already earned my Private Pilot Certificate with just about 100 hours of experience. This put me on track to graduate a semester early, December 2020 instead of May 2021. Throughout my time here, I have earned my Instrument rating and finished my Commercial Single-Engine training in our Cessna 172 fleet and am now in the process of earning my Commercial Multi-Engine training in our Diamond DA 42 fleet.

I am also a FAA-certified Advanced Instrument Ground Instructor and work as a Peer Counselor where I tutor students, endorse written exams, and for the past year I have taught labs for the College of Aviation. During the school year, there’s a very high chance you’ll find me in the Hazy Library until closing working with students. During admissions events such as Preview Day and Orientation, you’ll probably see me rocking out with our two awesome College of Aviation advisors Merrie and Stacey. I help create schedules for all you students and I make sure you end up with my favorite professors! For those of you reading this, we’re currently dealing with COVID-19. So, for any of my students reading this, I’m very proud of the work you all have completed as well as your adaptability and ability to deal with anything the world throws at us!

My involvement with our Flight Department and Flight Line is extensive. As the Lead Student Advisor for the Flight Department, I work one-on-one with management and help take suggestions students have and implement them at the Flight Department. As a student myself, I was always uncomfortable talking to my higher ups, which is why our department chair refers to me as his “feet on the ground”. I make sure students have someone they can comfortably talk to and share experiences, good or bad. I am incredibly lucky to be able to work with and call everyone in management a friend. If you’ve been at any of the admissions events, there’s a very high chance you’ve met and talked with me during the Flight Breakout Sessions. I have a great team of flight students that help me out and sit on the Flight Line Student Advisory Board and help plan student-led workshops on tough topics, and plan special events like socials and barbecues. I’m always looking for volunteers to be on the Advisory Board so swing by my office at the Flight Department and say hi!

Photos from when I was observing a demo-flight when Cirrus was demonstrating the ability of their SR-20 aircraft as a possible trainer for ERAU.
A name tag for every position I work.

You’ll also find me working behind the desk as a Flight Dispatcher and occasionally on a shuttle-run as a Shuttle Driver. I also sit on our No-Show Review Board where I take part in the determination if we should excuse a no-show or reduce costs of unexcused no-shows. The Flight Department always jokes about getting me a name tag reading, “Ask me, I probably know” because of the variety of qualifications I hold. I work on special projects, most recently having participated in helping choose the new fleet for ERAU, migrating our Dispatch team from a paper schedule to fully online, redesigned the entire shuttle route to make it easier for our students to make it from class to our Flight Line, and am currently taking part in helping select the new software to replace our Dispatch / Scheduling / Academic Tracking software.

I am on my third summer working for our Summer Programs Department, second summer working as a Housing Supervisor. I visit our office frequently because, quite frankly, I love the people I work with. I worked as a Teacher’s Aide throughout high school teaching 4th through 8th graders photography, so getting to teach high schoolers about aviation is probably one of the most fun things I’ve gotten to do. Also, shout out to Wendy, Shelby, Tori, Seyi, Logan, and Hayden over in the office! Hopefully I’ll see you all soon for the summer kick-off! I’m looking forward to my final year working with Summer Programs!

The 2019 team from our Summer Programs Department.

In my free time, I fly, believe it or not. I have over 300 hours of experience in a wide variety of aircraft. I earned my High-Performance and Complex Aircraft endorsements flying the most unique plane in the Prescott fleet, our 1980 Cessna 182-RG, affectionately known as Riddle 82. Sometimes I even fly two different types of planes in one day. One of the most memorable experiences was flying Riddle 82 in the morning with one of our Training Managers and going straight into Riddle 94, one of our Diamonds, with our Chief Pilot. If you ever see me in person, please ask me about it! There’s more that happened that’s just too much for a blog!

Team 3 Training Manager Dave Warnke and I taking off in Riddle 82 in 25-knot winds at Prescott, taken by Instructor Cameron Rojas through binoculars.

I’ve flown almost every Cessna 172 model from 1970 onward. I’ve done cross country flights to Vegas, up and down the California coast, and all throughout Arizona. Through my time as a Peer Counselor and my flight experience, I’d like to believe I’ve become an expert with the Cessna 172, but there’s always more to learn and experience. As students we never stop learning about the planes we fly.

My roommate took this photo of me relaxing on a bench at Arizona Snowbowl Ski Resort after a long day on the slopes.

When I’m not in the air, I try to stay active and take advantage of the weather we have. In Prescott, we’re about 20 degrees cooler than Phoenix on any given day, which means I can be outside year-round and not hiding from the heat. When the weather is good, I can be on our tennis courts hitting with my friends or relaxing poolside watching planes fly over. Sometimes I’ll make the dive down to Phoenix and hang out at the air-conditioned malls in Scottsdale. When it’s winter and we have snow, find me on the slopes in Flagstaff with my buddies.

As if I weren’t busy enough, I also run a research program with the Undergraduate Research Institute. This involves me running a brand-new virtual reality lab which is located at our Flight Department’s Simulation Center. The project was started by one of my professors, Professor Michelle P. Hight. I’ve been working with her from the beginning of the project and have become the resident student expert on flight simulation under VR. I have two awesome research assistants who I couldn’t work without. They happened to be two of my friends, Jake and Daniel. Jake and I were almost-neighbors freshman year, he lived one suite away from me in the Mingus Mountain Complex and I happened to be friends with his suite-mates, so I was always invading their dorms. Daniel is a sophomore who I met through my work as the Student advisor to the Flight Department and we immediately clicked. Our goal is to reduce the cost of flight training and hopefully play a part in reducing the global pilot shortage. I’ve presented at the Industry Advisory Board in front of many major companies. It’s only been our first semester working, and we didn’t get to do very much due to the on-going pandemic, but we’ve adapted and changed everything we’re doing. Right now, we’re designing an experimental course that will hopefully be offered by the College of Aviation in the fall! So, for all you incoming students, keep an eye out for the course offering and I might get to be your teacher!

My two research assistants Jake (left) and Daniel (right) testing out our VR equipment before the students get working on their virtual private pilot course.
Me presenting about my research at the Industry Advisory Board taken by CoA Advisor Merrie Heath.

CSI Students Attend the RSA Conference

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by Kevin Hood

My name is Kevin Hood and I am a Sophomore studying Cyber Intelligence and Security. During my time at Embry-Riddle, I have been managing the Cyber Lab, leading Cyber Defense Club, and working with the college to grow the degree program. Recently, Mohammed Dalloul and I organized a trip to bring a group of students to San Francisco. During the last week of February, the Women in Cybersecurity Club and the Cyber Defense Club visited San Francisco to tour Silicon Valley companies and attend the RSA Conference. The goal for the trip was to help the students practice networking, expose them to opportunities, and make Embry-Riddle well-known in the cybersecurity industry.

This year, club members attended and toured Google’s Headquarters, The Intel Museum, and the Plug and Play Tech Center. This allowed students to experience the Bay Area commodities and cybersecurity companies that exist. Google offers a unique work environment that ensures their employees live in a healthy work-life balance. Our students were surprised how Google provides free gourmet meals, freedom to pursue creative ideas, and collaborate with the best minds in the industry. The GooglePlex has 3D printing labs, employee gardens, and gyms available for employees to use during the workday. Google offers student internships in cybersecurity, and we talked to them about participating in our career fair that we offer for students in both the Fall and Spring semesters.

The second place we visited was the Intel campus in Silicon Valley. Kevin Dorland, a senior in the Cyber Intelligence and Security program, gave other students a tour of the Intel Museum. Kevin’s expertise and previous knowledge on Intel’s products was an inspiration for our students and taught them about the history of computers, old storage devices, Intel StrataFlash memory, microcontrollers, and the manufacturing behind Intel chipsets.

Kevin Dorland at the Intel Museum

Silicon Valley is best known for the technology startups in the industry, and the College of Security and Intelligence Dean, Dr. Jon Haass, got us connected with the Plug and Play Tech Center. Plug and Play is an innovation platform that helps startup companies connect with the world’s largest tech giants. These connections help the startups gain support and investments to grow their products. Plug and Play partners with universities across the United States to support student startup ideas for startups when they graduate college.

During our tour of the facility, we learned about the process for how collaboration between the fortune 500 companies and startups can lead to the best innovation. Startups can present their ideas to company representatives and gain feedback on their ideas, which can lead to investments and company partnerships.

The next two days of the trip were spent attending the RSA Conference. The RSA Conference is the largest cybersecurity conference in the world, where students attend keynotes, networked with over 500 companies, and attend the RSAC College Day Sponsor Panel. During this event, we networked with the cybersecurity leaders from NBCUniversal, Walmart, Lockheed Martin, RSA, Intuit, Dell Technologies, and Microsoft about cybersecurity initiatives and ideas from students.

On Thursday afternoon, we met with Mike Gordon, Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer for Lockheed Martin to discuss how we could collaborate for more student projects and opportunities. Mike is an Embry-Riddle Alumni who provided support for ERAU’s 2019 CyberAero Competition. Lockheed Martin has set up special programs for our students including the Lockheed Martin Cybersecurity White Paper Competition where students wrote papers addressing multiple topics in cybersecurity to win prizes. Additionally, we met one of our recent Embry-Riddle graduates, Andrew Recker, who is working as a Cybersecurity Engineer at Lockheed Martin and was one of the founders of the Cyber Defense Club. Our goal is to continue to strengthen the relations with Lockheed Martin Cybersecurity organization for future opportunities, specialized internship programs, and project support.

Embry-Riddle students with Mike Gordon, Vice President and CISO of Lockheed Martin (ERAU Class of 2000), and Andrew Recker, a Cybersecurity Engineer at Lockheed Martin (ERAU Class of 2019).

Embry-Riddle’s Women in Cybersecurity Club (WiCys) attended the conference to gain connections and industry support across Cybersecurity domains. Currently, the ERAU WiCyS Club is the only WiCyS Club in Arizona, and they want to help other Universities start their own chapters. The club members networked with NBCUniversal to discuss how they can gain more support for projects and student opportunities. Additionally, they spoke with John Scimone, Senior Vice President & Chief Security Officer at Dell Security & Resiliency, regarding this topic because he is an Ambassador for the Executive Women’s Forum on Information Security, Risk Management & Privacy.

Student Representatives from Embry-Riddle’s Women in Cybersecurity Club with Andrea Abell, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Security Officer of NBCUniversal, and NBCUniversal Recruiters.

Students from both the WiCyS club and Cyber Defense Club attended the expo floor and industry talks on quantum cryptography, machine learning, anti-fraud, product security, and advanced threats facing the industry. The exposure for these students inspires them, as they can see first-hand the innovation and product ideas that these companies provide to the cybersecurity industry. These students discussed initiating startups, capstone ideas with representatives at the car hacking sandbox, and research projects that they could present in partnership with the sandbox partners at the following year at the conference.

The opportunity to tour Silicon Valley and attend the RSA Conference was invaluable to us. During the conference, Mohammed and I spent most of our time collaborating with the members of the Chief Information Security Officer Panel and companies on the expo floor. Gaining insight into the industry and learning how academia can collaborate with the companies was very inspiring. Also, Mohammed and I are very proud of the students for leaving a lasting impression of the university at the expo floor, getting recruited for international job opportunities, and learning how to solve the cybersecurity threats facing the world. Overall, the trip was life changing for all of us and a huge thank you to the College of Security and Intelligence, Student Government Association, Undergraduate Research Institute, Campus Facilities, Women in Cybersecurity, Dean Rhondie, and Leah Richwine for making the trip possible.