Former TAMU president to speak in Navasota
Photo by Texas A&M
Dr. R. Bowen Loftin, President Emeritus of Texas A&M University, will be the speaker at the Two Rivers Heritage Foundation “history mixer” Tuesday, Jan. 18. The meeting is held at New Hope Church, 2159 Hwy 105 East, Navasota beginning at 5:30 p.m. The general public is invited.
Dr. Loftin, a graduate of Navasota High School, will reminisce of his years growing in Navasota picking cotton, odd jobs in town, and working on the Loftin Heritage Ranch on Highway 105 just east of Highway 6.
Upon his graduation from Navasota High, Dr. Loftin went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in physics from Texas A&M within three years in 1970. He then entered Rice University, earning a M.A. and Ph.D in 1973 and 1975, both in physics.
Dr. Loftin’s career included previously being named President of Texas A&M at College Station in February 2010. He served as Interim President from June 2009 to 2010. Preceding that appointment, Dr. Loftin was vice president and chief executive officer of Texas A&M University’s branch campus in Galveston, as well as professor of Maritime Systems Engineering.
When Hurricane Ike hit the Texas Gulf Coast in 2008, Dr. Loftin oversaw evacuation of the entire multi-site Galveston campus relocating, 1,500 students, faculty and staff to the College Station A&M campus.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Loftin was professor and chair of the Department of Computer Science and director of the NASA Virtual Environments Research Institute at the University of Houston.
He also served as a professor of electrical and computer engineering as well as computer Science at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.
Additionally, he was Old Dominion’s director of simulation programs and had responsibility for the institution’s graduate programs in modeling and simulation. He also served as executive director of the Virginia Modeling, Analysis and Simulation Center. Dr. Loftin is a frequent consultant to both industry and government in the areas of modeling and simulation, advanced training technologies, and scientific/engineering data visualization. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 technical publications.
Dr. Loftin served as Texas A&M’s president during the time it made history when Texas A&M officially became a part of the Southeastern Conference on July 1, 2012. In July of 2013 Dr. Loftin announced he would leave his position of Texas A&M President in January 2014.
He soon became Chancellor at the University of Missouri in 2014 serving nearly two years when both he and the University’s President resigned in November 2015.
Dr. Loftin lives in College Station with his wife, Dr. Karin Loftin, who has a Rice University Ph.D. in Biomedical Science. He continues to serve on numerous advisory committees and panels as well as writing technical papers.