Introducing Dr. Rodica A. Baranescu, SAE President for the year 2000

Rodica Baranescu, SAE President for the year 2000, talks about the challenges she faced and the successes she enjoyed on her odyssey to the pinnacle of the automotive engineering community.

Had her father gotten his way, Rodica Baranescu would now have a successful physician's practice and enough spare time to entertain audiences with her musical talents. Imagine his reaction when a young Rodica declared that what she was more interested in doing when she grew up was ballooning over Africa.

To father Vasile Delcescu's good fortune, his oldest daughter wasn't a full-time resident of the dream world she created by reading Jules Verne fantasy travel books. In fact, Rodica in her youth exhibited a remarkable facility for learning and understanding more down-to-earth subjects such as math and physics. In the post-war-ravaged reality of Romania, she was infinitely more likely to study the physical properties of the balloon than to ever climb aboard one.