2005 Spring Banquet

Distinguished Alumnus Award

Annual Spring Banquet

in the

The George W. Woodruff
School of Mechanical Engineering

Thursday, April 26, 2005
6:00 p.m.
Love Building, First Floor Atrium
Georgia Institute of Technology

This event is planned and organized by the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering Student Advisory Committee (WSSAC) and is sponsored by the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering.

The 2005 Woodruff School Distinguished Alumnus

Goodman Espy III, M.D. (BME 1957)

Goodman B. "G.B." Espy received his bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Georgia Tech in 1957. He is the only known co-op student to have been elected to both ODK and the ANAK Society while at Georgia Tech. After graduation, he taught math as a graduate assistant and worked at the Georgia Tech Research Station on a number of medical projects before entering Tulane Medical School in 1958. In 1962 he received his M.D. degree, which was followed by four years of OB-GYN residency training at Tulane. Dr. Espy then entered the U.S. Army.

In 1967, he founded OB-GYN Associates in Marietta, Georgia. He has delivered more than 12,000 babies in his career, and is credited with having delivered more babies than any other physician in Georgia. In 1993, he co-authored a new surgical approach for laparoscopic hysterectomies, which was reported in several medical publications. Overall, Dr. Espy has performed more than 10,000 surgical procedures.

During the Kosovo War, in 1999, Dr. Espy went to refugee camps in Albania, and has since been very active in obtaining medical equipment for Albanians in an effort to upgrade what he calls "a deplorable example of the medical environment in which those less fortunate than we live." Under his leadership, his medical practice has funded more than thirty scholarships during the last twenty-five years, for students in need of an education in Europe and the United States.

Dr. Espy served on the Georgia Tech Advisory Board from 1978 to 1986, and from 1988 until 1998, he was a member of the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering's Advisory Board. Since 1995, he has served on the External Advisory Board for the Institute of Bioengineering and Biosciences at Georgia Tech. In 2001, Dr. Espy was the recipient of the Beta Theta Pi National Leadership and Service Award. In 2002, he was given a Community Service Award by Channel 11, and in 2003 he received the Dr. Jack A. Raines Humanitarian Award from the Medical Association of Georgia. That award was given for "outstanding humanitarian contributions to his fellow man, community, country, and world community beyond the practice of medicine." He is on the board of directors of several organizations.

Dr. Espy is married to Cheryl and they have two daughters. He has a special interest in running, having run more than sixty marathons, including the last twenty-five New York Marathons.

About the Award

The Woodruff School Distinguished Alumnus Award was inaugurated in 1989 to recognize an outstanding alumnus of the Woodruff School. The names of the winners are on permanent display in the lobby of the MRDC Building at Georgia Tech.