MELBOURNE, FLA. — The distinguished former astronaut and retired U.S. Navy Capt. Winston Scott, who spent nearly 25 days in space over two critical 1990s-era shuttle missions, will usher hundreds of Florida Tech students into their next missions when he speaks at the school’s spring commencement on May 9.
The school will host three ceremonies on that busy and exciting day at its Clemente Center venue:
- 9 a.m. for College of Engineering and Science undergraduate students
- 1 p.m. for all students from Bisk College of Business and graduate students from the College of Engineering and Science
- 5 p.m. for all students from the College of Aeronautics and the College of Psychology and Liberal Arts
Scott will offer remarks at each and be welcomed by Florida Tech President John Nicklow, who will lead the ceremonies.
“Winston is inspiring and embodies the values of Florida Tech: focused on excellence, leads with integrity and community responsibility, applauds innovation, and supports the next generation of learners,” Nicklow said.
The numbers will be finalized in the coming weeks, but the university is expected to bestow nearly 1,300 degrees across the three ceremonies, which together will see about 1,000 students cross the stage. International graduates in the Class of 2026 hail from 73 countries.
Scott likely saw those countries and more from his vantage point hundreds of miles above Earth during his thrilling space shuttle missions. Born in Miami and educated at Florida State and later at the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, he joined the Navy in 1972 and was named a naval aviator in 1974. He would go on to train on multiple rotary-win and fixed-wing aircraft, including the F14 Tomcat and the F/A-18 Hornet, as he accrued more than 7,000 flight hours on 25 different military and civilian aircraft.
In 1992, Scott was selected by NASA and reported to Johnson Space Center to start his astronaut training. Four years later he was serving as mission specialist on STS-72, a nine-day flight where the crew retrieved one satellite, deployed and retrieved a different satellite and conducted two spacewalks – one by Scott of nearly seven hours – to demonstrate and evaluate techniques to be used in the assembly of the International Space Station.
A year later, Scott was on a shuttle once again. And again, he spent hours on a spacewalk – two, actually – as the crew undertook the manual capture of a satellite and conducted tool and procedure testing for future space station assembly. Across his two missions, Scott spent nearly 20 hours outside of the shuttle and nearly 25 days in space overall.
Scott retired from NASA and the Navy in summer 1999 and began an illustrious post-space career in higher education, starting at his alma mater FSU as vice president for student affairs and later serving as dean of Florida Tech’s aeronautics college and as senior vice president for external relations and economic development.
Between FSU and Florida Tech, Scott served as executive director of the Florida Space Authority and later worked as vice president and deputy general manager of the engineering and science contract group for Jacobs Engineering in Houston. Scott formally retired in 2021 and is a professor emeritus at Florida Tech.
A husband and father, Scott is an advanced martial arts practitioner with a 2nd-degtree black belt in Shotokan karate. He is also an extremely accomplished musician, playing trumpet and performing with multiple bands over the years.
All three commencement ceremonies will be livestreamed.
