an engineer first

Armstrong taught a couple of courses in aeronautical engineering, in which he says he enjoyed the daily interaction with students most of all. But Armstrong was no ordinary professor. He was a celebrity who couldn't shake his fame, even in the halls of academe. When he finished teaching his first class he had to run the gauntlet of a hall full of reporters waiting outside. Huston says students regularly stood on top of one another's shoulders so they could peer through an 8-foot-high window into his classroom. "It was maddening," he recalls. He adds that Armstrong ended up spending a good part of his day autographing photographs or being waylaid by students who wanted just to be near him. Meanwhile, although he was generally well accepted by his fellow engineering professors, some members of other departments carped about why a man with no Ph.D. was given a faculty position.

Armstrong eventually grew tired of what he told Prism was "the complexity of university governance"-Armstrong-speak for bureaucracy, endless regulations, and campus politics. After eight years, Huston figures "the shine had pretty well worn off," and Armstrong quit the university on New Year's Day 1980.

Corporate Engineer

ARMSTRONG THEN entered another phase in his engineering career, serving on the board of numerous companies, including Cinergy Corp., Thiokol Corp. (now Cordant Technologies), and AIL Systems, a Long Island-based defense electronics company, which later merged with EDO Corp., in 2000. Armstrong cites his engineering background as essential to his effectiveness and success in his new role. "Understanding the engineering challenges was fundamental to deciding how to allocate resources and the probability of the success of a potential acquisition," he told Prism. That knowledge meant that Armstrong was far from a figurehead board member. "Of course, any company would know that having Neil Armstrong on board would lend a certain prestige to their organization," Hansen says. "But he also was a good contributor. He wouldn't have gotten on a board if he didn't feel interested and didn't feel like he could contribute. There were often highly technical details that came up, and Neil's engineering background really helped." Those words were echoed by James Smith in May 2002 when he took over as the new chairman. "Neil's strong personal involvement was instrumental in the growth of AIL, the success of the EDO/AIL, merger, and the continued development of the combined companies," Smith said.

Today Armstrong divides his time between his home in Indian Kill, a suburb of Cincinnati, and a 200-acre farm in Lebanon, Ohio, which he shares with his wife, Carol Knight. He has two grown sons from a previous marriage.

Although his career as a practicing engineer is over, Armstrong is still deeply concerned about the profession and its successes and failings, and the fact that the industry often isn't well understood by the general public. "Engineers are dedicated to solving problems and creating new, useful, and efficient things. So should not the world admire and respect them?" Armstrong mused in his speech to the National Press Club. "Answer: only occasionally. Many of our fellow citizens are mistrustful of logic and critical of technocrats, and often with reason."