Mr. Peter J. Garland, director, advanced programs, MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (TSX:MDA), St. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec, Canada facility, has won the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AAIA) 2014 Aerospace Communications Award. Garland will receive the award at a noon awards luncheon on August 7, as part of the AIAA Space and Astronautics Forum (SPACE 2014), August 4-7, at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, San Diego, Calif.
The AIAA Aerospace Communications Award recognizes outstanding contributions in the field of aerospace communications. Garland is being honored for his “technical and management contributions to the advancement of space and ground technology.”
“Having started my working career as a 15 year old apprentice, for me this award shows that anything is possible and demonstrates the true value of mentorship in our profession,” said Garland. “During my early years in Canada I had the privilege of learning from some of the pioneers of SatCom and felt lucky to be able to work with the smartest people in the Canadian manufacturing industry, the Communications Research Centre, the Canadian Space Agency, Telesat Canada and the European Space Agency. A broad exposure to this diverse community of technologists, satellite operators, service providers and end users has enabled me to match technology to real application needs. Looking forward, I hope I can play a part in the revitalization of the Canadian SatCom program and community. As someone now studying the History of Technology and Commerce, given the list of previous winners, I am very humbled by this honour.”
Garland began his career in the early 1960’s as a communications engineer at one of the original Marconi Short Wave beam transmitting stations. Later, he participated in the design, manufacture, integration and testing of a number of space-based instruments in support of the United Kingdom’s X-ray Astronomy research program, creating a number of X-ray telescopes used to detect black holes. In 1980, Garland moved to Canada, where he has dedicated his work solely to the area of satellite communications. He was responsible for leading the design and implementation of hardware and software that allowed Teleglobe Canada to connect phone calls to the rest of the world via one of the first TDMA based satellite links. Garland later led a multi company Canadian Advanced Satcom program team whose work led to the deployment of the world’s first Ka-band multimedia satellite communication system, at the same time creating a new standard of packet-switching in satellite communication technology that greatly increased the throughput of satcom systems. Garland also led the team that first developed and promoted the DVB-RCS standard as a worldwide standard for two-way satellite communications.
AIAA is the largest aerospace professional society in the world, serving a diverse range of more than 35,000 individual members from 80 countries, and 100 corporate members. AIAA members help make the world safe, more connected, more accessible, and more prosperous. For more information, visit www.aiaa.org.
For further information:
DUANE HYLAND
703.264.7558
duaneh@aiaa.org
For more information on Garland, or on MDA, please contact Wendy Keyzer, MDA External Relations, at wendy@mdacorporation.com, or at (604) 231-2743
For more information about the AIAA Aerospace Communications Award, or the AIAA Honors and Awards program, please contact Carol Stewart or the AIAA Honors and Awards program, please contact Carol Stewart at carols@aiaa.org or 703.264.7623.
