Biography

Stephen Waring grew up innocently on the Nebraska prairie in the Village of Bloomington. He traveled across the Big Blue River to the woodlands of Crete to attend Doane College and learn about civilization. For his graduate education, he continued toward the corrupt East and studied in Iowa City at the University of Iowa. Waring took courses in European and American history and began to learn cynicism and irony as he studied the history of modern governance and bureaucratic organizations. One day, while working in his basement, he received a call from a woman with a Southern accent, asking him to come to Huntsville, Alabama to teach history to the natives and to research spacemen. Waring had to investigate where Huntsville was, but decided to come anyway. At UAH, the young man studied and taught and lost his innocence and learned the attractions of corruption and civilization. As an old man, he received awards for teaching and research, but wondered what he should do when he grew up. Meanwhile, Waring works, concocts martinis, plays tennis, and obeys his dogs; his two darling daughters are companions in adventure. He still keeps some prairie in his heart.

Curriculum Vitae

Education

• Ph.D., University of Iowa
• M.A., University of Iowa
• B.A., Doane College

Expertise

• Twentieth-Century U. S.
• History of Technology
• U.S. Labor and Business

Recent Publications

• The Challenger Investigations (in progress).

• Waring and Brian C. Odom. NASA and the Long Civil Rights Movement, eds. (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2019).

• Waring and Andrew J. Dunar. Power to Explore: A History of Marshall Space Flight Center 1960-1990. Washington, DC: NASA SP-4313, 1999. Winner of the 2001 American Association of Aeronautics and Astronautics History Manuscript Award.