Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College will hold a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) spring conference at the Jefferson Davis Campus on Friday, Feb. 28, at 10 a.m. in the campus Fine Arts Auditorium. Fred Haise Jr., former Apollo 13 lunar module pilot, will be the guest speaker.

Haise is a Biloxi High School graduate and MGCCC alumnus. He was a STEM major in college, graduating with honors in aeronautical engineering from the University of Oklahoma. He completed post-graduate courses at the United States Air Force Aerospace Test Pilot School at Edwards Air Force Base in 1964 and Harvard Business School in 1972.

He underwent naval aviator training from 1952 to 1954 and served as a Marine Corps fighter pilot at MCAS Cherry Point, North Carolina, from March 1954 to September 1956.

On April 11, 1970, he became one of only 24 people to have ever flown to the moon. He would have been the sixth human to land and walk on the moon but the mission was aborted due to spacecraft failure. Due to the free return trajectory on this mission, Haise, along with Jim Lovell and Jack Swigert, the other two astronauts on Apollo 13, likely holds the record for the furthest distance from the Earth ever traveled by human beings. He went on the fly the Space Shuttle Approach and Landing tests before retiring from NASA in 1979. After that, he became a test pilot and executive with Grumman Aerospace Corporation, where he remained until retiring in 1996.

He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1970, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and is in the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Bill Paxton played the role of Haise in the film “Apollo 13” in 1995.

The event, aimed at encouraging high school and college students to major in STEM fields, is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Dr. Fran Marchette, at (228) 897-3752.