Now in its 14th year, The Citadel School of Engineering inducted four new members into the Academy of Engineers on April 16: Richard Cook, Jr., ’84; Thomas Dion, ’68; Dan Nale, ’82; and Johnston Peeples, ’70.

The evening also included the presentation of the Industry Partner Award to Robbert Rennebaum, the Engineering in Community Award to Tonya Matthews and the Young Alumnus of the Year Award to Ahmad Tarik Al Mashhadany.

The Academy of Engineers honors engineering leaders from the public and private sectors who have found professional success and made meaningful contributions to their communities. Inductees reflect The Citadel School of Engineering’s mission to develop principled engineering leaders for a global community, and embody the college’s core values of honor, duty and respect.

“The 14th Annual Academy of Engineers welcomes an exceptional class of inductees who exemplify The Citadel’s values of duty, honor, and respect through their distinguished careers. These remarkable principled leaders have applied engineering ingenuity to solve complex challenges and improve lives across our state, nation, and world,” said Andrew Williams, Ph.D., dean of the School of Engineering. “Among our inductees are veterans who carried their oath of service from military uniform into the engineering profession, inventors whose patents and innovations advanced their industries, and leaders who guided teams of thousands at the frontier of aerospace and computing technology. Each has also answered the call to teach, returning to The Citadel to share their knowledge and experience, mentoring the next generation of engineers with the same principled dedication that defined their careers.”

The 2026 Academy of Engineers inductees are:

Richard Cook, Jr., ’84

Richard L. Cook, Jr. is a nationally recognized building envelope consultant and designer with more than four decades of experience specializing in roofing, waterproofing, and exterior wall systems. He earned his Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering from The Citadel in 1984 and has dedicated his career to advancing the technical standards of building enclosure design and performance. He currently serves as Managing Partner and Principal of The Building Envelope Enclosure Group (The BEE Group), where he provides comprehensive consulting services for private, commercial, industrial, institutional, and government clients. His work focuses on delivering durable, high-performing enclosure solutions that protect buildings from water intrusion, wind damage, and long-term deterioration.

Mr. Cook’s professional background includes cofounding ADC Engineering, where he spent nearly three decades as a leader in building envelope consulting before transitioning into his current role. Earlier in his career, he served with the U.S. Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFACENGCOM), where he developed roofing programs, improved design guidelines, and coordinated major recovery efforts following Hurricane Hugo. He has authored numerous technical papers and presented them at dozens of national symposiums, conferences, and universities, sharing expertise in enclosure systems and wind-related building damage. His credentials include Fellow of the International Institute of Building Enclosure Consultants (IIBEC), Registered Building Envelope Consultant, Registered Roof and Waterproofing Consultant, Certified Building Enclosure Commissioning Provider, and LEED® Accredited Professional, among many other specialized certifications. In addition to his technical achievements, Mr. Cook has been widely honored for his contributions to engineering and the building envelope industry. He was named “Outstanding Engineer” by The Citadel and received the Charleston Contractors Association Engineer of the Year Award. He has also led the industry in award-winning technical design and report submissions, earning more than fifty IIBEC/RCI, SWRI, and NRCA design and document competition recognitions, including multiple first-place awards for projects on The Citadel campus. Deeply committed to professional service and education, he has held leadership roles within IIBEC and President/Chair for numerous Citadel Alumni/Charleston organizations, served as an adjunct professor, and established/funded both academic and an athletic scholarship.

Thomas Dion, ’68

Thomas R. Dion was born in 1946 in Summerville, S.C.. He attended public schools and entered Pinewood School in 1955 in Summerville. Later he was a member of the last class to graduate from Gaud School in Charleston. While still in high school he enlisted in the U.S. Naval Reserve Sea Bees as an engineering aid. He was a member of The Citadel Class of 1968, served as a commissioned officer in the United States Navy on board ship, and later returned to school to complete his graduate work in Civil Engineering at Clemson University in 1973. He worked at the S.C. Department of Transportation and at Sigma Engineers in Charleston before joining the Citadel’s Civil Engineering Departmental faculty in 1976. He was promoted to Colonel and became a full professor in 1996. He retired after almost 38 years of teaching at the end of 2013. He married Susan Cameron Richardson and they have two sons: Thomas Walker Dion (1975- 2012) and Cameron Richardson Dion.

He is the author of two internationally published civil engineering textbooks and has also been issued patents in and outside of the United States. He was elected as a Commissioner of Public Works for the Town of Summerville, served as a charter member of the Board of Architectural Review, and as the chief examiner for the S.C. State Board of Engineering and Land Surveying Examiners on matters pertaining to land surveying for 10 years. In addition to many professional organizations, he is a member of the Society of Colonial Wars. He was a recipient of the Palmetto Award medal during Citadel Corps Day 2010 and of the LeTellier Cup from the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2011 for his lifetime contribution to the profession. In 2013 he received the South Carolina Professional Land Surveyors Life Service Award for his educational contributions to the profession of land surveying in the State of South Carolina over the past 38 years. Most recently he was lead author on a History of the Free School Board of Dorchester in the Province of Carolina, published by the Dorchester Free School Board in 2024 in celebration of their 300 anniversary, and also lead author on another local history, The Tea Farm—Her People and Her Town: Summerville, South Carolina, published in 2025 by the Timrod Literary and Library Association in Summerville. He is currently working on another history for the Timrod entitled Marooning in the Pines—The Inns of Summerville. He is a member of St. Paul’s Church Anglican in Summerville, South Carolina.

Dan Nale, ’82

Dr. Dan D. Nale, PE, PhD, began his distinguished engineering career upon graduating from The Citadel with a BS in Civil Engineering in 1982. As a cadet, Dr. Nale was named to the Dean’s List, President’s List, and Gold Stars List. He earned membership in Tau Beta Pi, Summerall Guards and Honor Court and progressed in leadership from Squad Corporal and Platoon Sergeant to F Company Commander.

Having begun as a stress analyst engineer on the space shuttle wing program at Grumman Aerospace, Dr. Nale remained in the aerospace sector until he retired in 2019 from Gulfstream Aerospace Corporation as Sr. Vice President of Programs, Engineering, Flight Operations, and Flight Test. Committed to lifelong learning, Dr. Nale earned his ME and PhD in Civil Engineering from the University of South Carolina and his MBA from Mercer University. Following his retirement from Gulfstream, Dr. Nale returned to The Citadel, where for six years he served on the engineering faculty.

In 2019, Dr. Nale, with support from Gulfstream Aerospace, established an engineering scholarship, which is awarded annually to undergraduate students who are both affiliated with Gulfstream and are pursuing a degree in civil, mechanical, aerospace, or electrical engineering.

A private pilot, Dr. Nale has flown the Grumman Tiger aircraft, built by the company where he began his career. He also served as a flight observer aboard various Gulfstream aircraft. Dr. Nale is the proud father of two adult daughters and two granddaughters. Today, he and his wife live in Charleston, where he consults with established and emerging aerospace firms advancing the future of flight.

Johnston Peeples, ’70

A native South Carolinian, John Peeples received a BS in Electrical Engineering from The Citadel, class of 1970. After a tour of duty in the US Air Force, he completed an MSEE and PhD in EE at the University of South Carolina.

Peeples entered the computer industry with NCR Corporation in 1976 and received corporate- and industry-wide recognition in 1980 for his role in the analysis of low-level radiation-induced failures, called “soft errors” that were threatening to limit the size of memory chips.

In 1996 Peeples retired as NCR’s Assistant Vice President of Technology to co-found KryoTech, Inc., with the mission of advancing computing performance through the application of novel cooling techniques. To this end, KryoTech demonstrated the world’s first one Giga-hertz Personal Computer at AMD’s 1999 shareholder meeting in New York City.

In August 1999 Peeples joined The Citadel’s Electrical and Computer Engineering faculty, where his service included 12 years as department head. His teaching and scholarly interest were focused on Solid State Devices and Energy Systems Engineering. He retired from full-time teaching in July 2022, but continues to teach college credit Physics at a Charleston-area high school.

Under appointments by Governors Haley and McMaster, Peeples completed 10 years of service to the State of South Carolina as a member of the SC Board of Registration of Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, including two years as the Board’s chair. He is a PE, a member of the engineering honor society Tau Beta Pi, a senior[1]life-member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, a patent holder, author of numerous technical papers, journal articles, symposium proceedings and book chapters, and is an active speaker at professional and technical venues. Peeples is the 2019 recipient of the international Robert Janowiak award for leadership and service to electrical and computer engineering education; was honored with a named full scholarship for ECE students at The Citadel; received The Citadel’s 2022 Palmetto Medal; and was named the 2020 Charleston Engineer of the Year. He just completed a term as the 2025 chair of the Charleston Engineers Joint Council.