Woody Stoddard 11/4/44 - 1/25/07

Forrest S. “Woody” Stoddard, formerly of Amherst, passed away after a
heroic battle with cancer on Thursday, January 25 at age 62.

He was born November 4, 1944 at Eglin Air Base in Florida, where his
father was stationed.  The family moved frequently until 1961, when
they settled in Amherst.  Woody graduated from Amherst Regional High
School in 1962 before going to M.I.T. where he received his B.S. (1966)
and M.S. (1968) in aeronautics and astronautics.  Woody then joined the
Air Force where he worked on designing helicopters and vertical
take-off aircraft at Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio.

Woody left the service in 1972 to return to Amherst where he began
applying his talents to the then emerging field of wind energy.  His
dream was to help create and promote wind power—a new, non-polluting,
renewable source of energy.  Working with Prof. Bill Heronemus and a
group of younger graduate students Woody helped build the UMass Wind
Furnace on the Northeast side of campus.  He received his Ph.D. in
Civil/Ocean Engineering in 1979.  Woody spent the rest of his 34-year
career pursuing his dream by writing grants to fund research, battling
resistant public utilities and lobbying state and federal agencies to
promote interest in alternative energy — he is regarded as an expert in
his field of structural dynamics, aerodynamics, design and development
of wind turbines.  He wrote over 50 technical reports on the subject
and in 1987 co-authored the highly regarded textbook Wind Turbine
Engineering Design.  He was awarded an Academic Achievement Award in
1988 and, recently, a Lifetime Achievement Award, both from the
American Wind Energy Association.

Woody leaves two sons, Joshua and Nathan, both of Boston; two sisters,
Cynthia Ganea of Brooklyn, NY and Tracy Martin of Kansas City, KS; and
one brother, Edward “Skip” of Raleigh, NC in addition to many
professional colleagues and dear friends.

Woody was recently honored with a lifetime achievement award from the
American Wind Energy Association (AWEA).  The full news release is
available on the AWEA Web site at
http://www.awea.org/newsroom/releases/US_Wind_Industry_Award_012507.html