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Outstanding Alumni Awards (continued from page 11)
He teamed up with NASCAR driver Mike
Garvey to form Peak Performance
Motorsports, with Garvey driving the No. 66
Peak Fitness Ford Taurus in races nationwide.
Imbued with more energy than that under
the hood of No. 66, Stec is set on building his
race team the same way he built his line of
health clubs—full speed ahead to the checkered
flag.
Stec and his wife, Melissa, have two
daughters, Lauren and Samantha.
2005 Outstanding Alumnus
Dr. Ronald I. Miller (’65)
In 2004, Ron Miller was inducted into the
Phi Kappa Phi Academic Hall of Fame at
APSU.
A physicist and senior intelligence officer
at the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Missile
and Space Intelligence Center (DIA/MSIC),
Redstone Arsenal, Ala., Miller is the Defense
Intelligence Agency’s member of the Directed
Energy Weapons Subcommittee (DEWS) of
the U.S. Intelligence Community in
Washington, D.C.
After graduating from APSU with degrees
in mathematics and physics, Miller earned a
master’s degree in physics from Clemson
University and a doctorate in physics from
Southeastern Institute of Technology. He has
taught physics part time at four universities.
He has been part of the Directed Energy
Weapons Group since 1977, serving as chief
from 1987-2002. Prior to that, from 1970-77,
he was a physicist for Boeing Aerospace
Company in Huntsville, Ala., and Seattle,
Wash. At Boeing, he made contributions to
NASA research programs studying the solidification
of materials in the micro-gravity environment
of space. This work involved experiments
on Skylab, the Apollo-Soyuz mission
and various sub-orbital rocket flights.
At MSIC, Miller has been responsible for
the management and technical direction of
scientific and technical analyses of foreign
directed energy weapon systems as well as
the anti-satellite, anti-ballistic missile and air
defense missions. Intelligence analyses
include developing mathematical models and
computer simulations of these systems and
performing engagement simulations of the
DEW systems against targets to assess the
threat of directed energy weapons to U.S.
forces and interests.
As chair of the DEW Subcommittee from
1990-98, Miller managed these efforts for all
DEW missions at the national level. He now
serves as adviser on foreign DEW systems to
the Departments of Defense, State and
Energy and to the United States Congress.
He is the author of more than 50 scientific
journal articles and government reports in the
fields of liquid state physics, low temperature
physics, electromagnetic field theory and
laser science and systems engineering. A
member and associate fellow of the American
Physical Society, he also belongs to the
Directed Energy Professional Society. He is
listed in such biographical reference works as
“Who’s Who in Aviation and Aerospace” and
“Who’s Who in America.”
Miller has received numerous NASA,
Intelligence Community and Department of
Defense honors, including the 1999 National
Intelligence Medal of Achievement, NASA
New Technology Award, U.S. Army and
Defense Intelligence Agency Outstanding
Performance Awards and the Exceptional
Intelligence Analyst Award.
He and his wife, Jan, have two grown
daughters and two grandsons.
2005 Outstanding Alumna Award
Carla Nester, M.D. (’87)
Austin Peay/Fall 2005
After serving as chief resident in internal
medicine at The University of North Carolina
(UNC) Hospitals in 2002-03, Dr. Carla Nester
was selected for a four-year fellowship in the
UNC Division of Nephrology and
Hypertension.
She will complete the fellowship in 2007
and will be eligible for board certification in
both adult and pediatric nephrology.
Nester completed her certification as a
medical technologist in 1983 and worked as a
civilian employee at a number of Army hospitals,
both in the United States and Germany,
from 1983-94.
She was living at Fort Campbell, Ky., during
1986-88 when she, as a nontraditional
student, enrolled at APSU. She earned a
bachelor’s degree in biology in 1987.
In 1989, she moved to Fort Bragg, N.C.,
and organized a new section of the laboratory
there, before going to work at Kaiser
Permanente, Springfield, Va. Because of her
leadership responsibilities at these and other
assignments, she went on to further her training
by earning a Master of Science in Health
Services Administration from Central
Michigan University in 1990.
A lifelong learner, Nester gained acceptance
at Penn State University College of
Medicine, Hershey, Pa., and left Germany to
enroll there in 1994. During her four years of
medical school, she served as president of the
Medical and Graduate School Government,
editor of the medical literary magazine, “Wild
Onions,” and coordinator of the Bethesda
Mission Food Project, a weekly collection
and delivery of food to a homeless shelter.
She shared her knowledge and expertise
through teaching physical diagnosis for second-year
students and did research leading to
a publication in the Journal of General
Internal Medicine.
While a resident at UNC, Nester was asked
to serve on a national Committee for Health
Care Policy for the American College of
Physicians-American Society of Internal
Medicine and as a representative to their
national Council of Residents.
During the first part of her fellowship, she
authored a chapter on glomerulonephritis for
a pediatric nephrology textbook and prepared
other scientific work for publication. In June
2005, she traveled to Heidelberg, Germany,
where she was an invited speaker at the
International Conference on
Glomerulonephritis.
Being named to Beta Beta Beta (national
undergraduate biology honorary) while at
APSU set a precedent for Nester’s future
awards. She was given the Department of the
Army’s Commander’s Award for Public
Service in 1984. During medical school, she
received the American Medical Women’s
Association Janet M. Glasgow Achievement
Award and the Kienle Award for
Humanitarian Contributions. In 1998, she
was elected to a lifelong membership in
Alpha Omega Alpha, a national medical
honor society.
During her UNC residency, she completed
certification in Advanced Life Support,
Pediatric Advanced Life Support and
Neonatal Advanced Life Support.
She is a member of the American College
of Physicians, American Society of Clinical
Pathologists, and the American Medical
Association. Licensed to practice medicine in
North Carolina, Nester is board certified by
both the American Board of Internal
Medicine and the American Board of
Pediatrics.
Engaged to Dr. Dale Bieber, Nester has a
son, Samuel.
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