Famous People You May not have Known Were Engineers

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Famous Engineers

Engineers practicing their profession seldom achieve fame except for their roles in designing and building spectacular structures, inventions and technology developments. Skills taught in engineering can lead to success in many fields, including politics, sports, and show business, as exemplified by these individuals.

Politics

1. Jimmy Carter attended Georgia Tech, and graduated from the US Naval Academy with an unspecified major (the custom at the time), but studied reactor technology and nuclear physics in graduate school. He also served as an engineer in US submarine fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific. 
2. Herbert Hoover was a globally experienced mining engineer and a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in geology. He engineered the recovery of Europe after World War 1. He had no experience as an elected official when he ran for president and won in 1928.
3. John E. Sununu, son of John H. Sununu, was the youngest member of the US Senate throughout his six-year term. He earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1986 and 1987, and an MBA from Harvard in 1991. 
4. John H. Sununu, Former New Hampshire governor, earned Bachelor's, Master's, and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT. He also served as the associate dean of the engineering college at Tufts University and as the White House Chief of Staff under President George H.W. Bush.   
5. Joe Barton of Texas has been a member of the House of Representatives since 1985. He holds a Bachelor's in industrial engineering from Texas A&M University and a Master's in industrial automation from Purdue University.
6. Pete Stark was a 40-year member of the US House of Representatives (1973-2013) and was the sixth-most senior member of Congress when he left office earlier this year. The California congressman received a Bachelor's degree in general engineering from MIT in 1953.
7. Yasser Arafat - Palestinian leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Graduated as a civil engineer from the University of Cairo.
8. Leonid Brezhnev - leader of the former Soviet Union, metallurgical engineer. 
9. Boris Yeltsin Growing up in the rural Sverdlovsk region, he studied at the Urals Polytechnic Institute, and began his career in the construction industry.- former president of Russia 

Sports

1. Eric Fisher of Central Michigan University Eric Fisher was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2013 National Football League Draft, selected by the Kansas City Chiefs. Off the field, he spent much of his time in the Engineering and Technology Building. Eric, a mechanical engineering technology major, was highly regarded by his teachers.   
2. Roger Staubach won a Heisman Trophy and a Super Bowl MVP Award, but still managed to squeeze an engineering degree onto his resume. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Staubach served in Vietnam and didn't start playing pro football until age 27, but ended up earning a spot in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
3. Joe Girardi, New York Yankees manager, received his Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Northwestern University. At Northwestern, he was a three-time Academic All-American and two-time All-Big Ten catcher. 
4. Tom Landry, Legendary Dallas Cowboys' football coach, earned a Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Texas and a Master's degree from the University of Houston.  
5. Doug Glanville is best known for having played centerfield for the Philadelphia Phillies, Texas Rangers, and Chicago Cubs, but he also earned a Bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
6. Danny Granger of the National Basketball Association's Indiana Pacers holds a Bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of New Mexico. Granger, who stands 6'8" tall, told nba.com that engineering was his goal as a youngster. He said, "I wanted to be a civil engineer and I was using basketball as my ticket to get a degree."
7. Bill Koch - yachtsman and winning America's Cup captain in 1992 , as well as the chairman of the America3 Foundation.
8. Jair Lynch - 1992 and 1996 Olympic gymnast. Civil Engineering degree from Stanford University. 
9. George S Halas - whose initials will forever be emblazoned on the left sleeve of the Chicago Bears uniform, played a large role in defining Sunday afternoons in America throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. He attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, playing football, baseball and basketball. George Halas was the 1919 Rose Bowl MVP, coach of the Chicago Bears for 47 years, owner of the Bears for 63 years, and co-founder of the National Football League. Notably, Halas played baseball, too, serving as New York Yankees right fielder prior to the arrival of Babe Ruth. He was also a civil engineer, his degree from the University of Illinois awarded after he left college early to serve in World War I short some course work.
10. Ryan Newman is a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racer who knows racing from the practical and theoretical sides. Newman earned his B.S. in engineering from Purdue in 2001 with a specialty in vehicle structures engineering. Throughout much of his career, he has been known for working with his crew chief, Matt Borland, who is an engineering graduate of General Motors Institute (Kettering University).
11. Dr. Stephan Humphries started his career as an offensive lineman with the Super Bowl-champion Chicago Bears in 1985, later moving to the Denver Broncos. But he was also a star student in biomedical engineering at the University of Michigan before moving on to medical school. Today he is a physician in Spokane, Wash.
12. Tom Mack was a National Football League lineman who started 184 consecutive games, played in 11 Pro Bowls, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He also earned a B.S. in structural engineering from the University of Michigan.     

Show Business

1. Alfred Hitchcock, Filmmaker, directed Psycho, The Birds, North by Northwest, Rear Window, Vertigo, and many other major movies, but started his working life as an engineer. He studied engineering at the London County Council School of Engineering and Navigation and worked as a draftsman before launching a career in movies in the 1920s.
2. Tom Scholz, guitarist for the rock band Boston, earned Bachelor's and Master's degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT. Scholz worked as a senior product design engineer for Polaroid before launching his music career. 
3. Frank Capra is best known for such movies as It Happened One Night, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and It's a Wonderful Life, but was educated as an engineer. Capra graduated from the California Institute of Technology in 1918 with a degree in chemical engineering. 
4. Dolph Lundgren is best known as the imposing Russian boxer, Ivan Drago, in the 1985 movie Rocky IV, But the Swedish-born actor and martial artist also holds degrees in chemical engineering from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm and chemistry from Washington State University.
5. Montel Williams holds a Bachelor's degree in general engineering from the US Naval Academy. Williams, who also studied Mandarin Chinese, served as a Naval intelligence officer specializing in languages. 
6. Hedy Lamarr, with no formal training in science or engineering, earns a spot for having co-invented and patented a "secret communication system" during World War II. The technology used frequency hopping as a means to make it harder for enemies to detect or jam radio-guided torpedoes. It later served as the foundation for the spread spectrum systems that are today employed in Bluetooth and WiFi networks. Lamarr's invention was not well known until 1997, when she finally received an award from the Electronic Frontier Foundation for her work.
7. Rowan Atkinson - A British comedian, best known for his starring roles in the television series "Blackadde"r and "Mr. Bean," and several films including Four Weddings And A Funeral. Atkinson attended first Manchester then Oxford University on an electrical engineering degree.
8. Roger Corman -film director, industrial engineering degree from Stanford University. He started direct involvement in films in 1953 as a producer and screenwriter, making his debut as director in 1955. Between then and his official retirement in 1971 he directed dozens of films, often as many as six or seven per year, typically shot extremely quickly on leftover sets from other, larger productions. His probably unbeatable record for a professional 35mm feature film was two days and a night to shoot the original version of "The Little Shop of Horrors".  
9. Herbie Hancock - jazz musician. EE from Grinnell College
10. AC Nielsen was born in Chicago, Illinois of Danish descent. Nielsen was educated at University of Wisconsin (now University of Wisconsin–Madison), where he received a B.S., summa cum laude in 1918. He was a member of Tau Beta Pi (engineering honor society), the Sigma Phi Society and a captain of the varsity tennis team from 1916 to 1918. He subsequently served in U.S. Naval Reserve. - developer of Nielsen rating system. 
11. Bill Nye - worked for Boeing before he became the "science guy", Mechanical engineering degree from Cornell University.