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 William Rankin PhD currently is the Chair and Associate Professor of the Department of Aviation at the University of Central Missouri. Prior to this position he served as an Assistant Professor of Aviation at Florida Memorial University in Miami, Florida and Deputy Director of Aviation for the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport. Dr. Rankin joined the Broward County Aviation Department in 1998, overseeing the operations, maintenance, planning and development sections of BCAD. He has 24 years of airport management experience including the Director of Aviation for the El Paso International Airport, Texas; the Director of Operations, Washington National Airport, Washington, DC; Director of the Eastern Iowa Regional Airport, Cedar Rapids, Iowa; and Manager of Smith-Reynolds Airport, Winston-Salem, NC. Dr. Rankin has a PhD in Business Administration from Northcentral University, Prescott, AZ. In addition, he is an Accredited Airport Executive in the American Association of Airport Executives, has a Commercial Pilot and Advanced Ground Instructor License. As a young man Dr. Rankin grew up in Huntsville, Alabama, the Rocket City and home of NASA's George C. Marshall Space Flight Center. It was in Huntsville that he met some of the greatest scientist of our era, including Dr. Werner von Braun, the head of NASA's manned space flight program. It was also in Huntsville that he was introduced to flying and astronomy. As a result of Dr. Rankin's interest in astronomy, astrophotography has become more than a hobby. It is a passion, the way he captures the universe we live in.
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