Alan R. Mulally, president and chief executive officer (retired), at the Ford Motor Company, received the 2015 J. C. Hunsaker Award in Aeronautical Engineering. As president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Mulally played a key role in the development and commercialization of the Boeing 777, the world’s largest twinjet and most popular wide-body plane. Now recognized as one of the most reliable and safest of airplanes, the 777 was first noted for its original designs. It was the first Boeing plane, for instance, to use a full-fledged “fly-by-wire” system, replacing conventional manual flight controls with electronic signals conveyed over wires. The 777’s complex design was made possible with the CATIA digital design system, which for the first time let Boeing put together an entire plane on computers prior to production. Since its first commercial flight in 1994, the 777 has proven its long-distance capabilities and currently holds the record for the longest non-stop flight, 11,664 nautical miles, from Hong Kong to London.