Who is he?
Researched by E3161 Victoria Edwards (RMC 2003)
* A chance encounter in the hallway nearly 60 years ago would lay the entire foundation for the future – his family, friendships and career.
* Mechanical Engineering was his academic program of choice, so Otto, Euler and Carnot joined the lexicon and slide rule dexterity became a sine qua non.
* In the summers he learned to fly Harvards and T-33s, receiving his pilot’s wings at Portage La Prairie in 1954. He was awarded the Lt Governor’s silver medal in 1954.
* In the fall of 1954 it was his good fortune that Marlene, the attractive young lady who assisted LCol King and the others in running the Mechanical Engineering department, accepted his invitation
to attend the November Ball – it was the beginning of a lifelong relationship for them both.
* Following grad, having taken the civilian Y in the road, he spent the summer as a junior engineer working on the Avro Arrow in Malton, and in the fall returned to Kingston to finish a Mech Engr
degree at Queens.
* Marlene and he were married the day after his last Queens final exam in the spring of 1956.
* More schooling seemed appropriate, so he embarked on a Masters degree at Queens and was simultaneously employed as a Lecturer in the Mech Dept at RMC. The teaching experience proved to be unexpectedly interesting and challenging, and in 1958 he was admitted to the MIT doctoral program, graduating in 1961.
* He spent another four years on the faculty at MIT, while simultaneously working part time for a small consulting firm developing computer programs (punched cards!) for turbomachine analysis.
* By 1966 the couple had two (dual-citizen) children, and after a full-time year with the firm, decided to return to Canada.
* It was an exciting growth time for engineering education, and the attractions of Kingston were strong for their little family.
* He returned to RMC, subsequently serving as Mech Dept Head for nine years (1969-78) and as Dean of Engineering for ten (1984-94). These administrative positions were exciting and he was convinced very
early on that people are far more interesting than things.
* However he found that teaching was the most appealing aspect of being a professor and was honoured to be the first recipient of the RMC Class of 1965 Teaching Excellence Award in 1992.
* He was fortunate to have three sabbaticals – the National Defence College course (1974-75), a year in Brussels at the von Karman Institute (1978-79), and a year at the Australian Defence Force
Academy in Canberra (1994-95).
* Marlene and he were strongly attracted to Australia as a result of their travels that year and have returned a number of times since.
* He officially retired in 1997, but for the ensuing 11 years taught a number of Mech courses and formulated the curriculum for RMC’s new Aeronautical Engineering program. He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada.
* In 2009, an Aeronautical Engineering Award named in his honour was presented to the class-selected outstanding Aero graduate.
* Through the years he and Marlene have been blessed with a family that has now grown to include a son-in-law, a daughter-in-law and five grandchildren.
* He has affirmed “It has been a privilege to work and share the classroom with four generations of RMC staff and three generations of cadets.”
a) 3257 Professor Ronald Wareham
b) 3333 Professor Peter Watson
c) 3342 Professor Craig Moffatt
d) 3441 Professor Stanley Wallace
e) 3346 Professor Joseph Howard
f) 3422 Professor Richard Cockfield
Craig Moffatt
Answer: c) 3342 Doctor W. Craig Moffatt (RMC 1955). The first W. Craig Moffatt Aeronautical Engineering Award was presented at RMC in 2009.