Rocketry Planet

Micah Osei Springer — 1984 - 2008.

PALO ALTO, California USA — Ohio State University Rocket Team pioneer, Micah Springer, has passed away during an automobile accident along the Pacific Coast Highway outside of Palo Alto, Califorina, Friday evening.  Springer was 23.  The other two occupants were Viet Nguyen, 28, and Chris Sahm, 29.

According to an online report, the three were last seen heading south along Highway 1, driving a 2005 Jeep Cherokee, around 7:45PM Friday evening.  Part of a larger group of Stanford graduate students attending a weekend gathering in Big Sur, the group notified the California Highway Patrol around 11AM Saturday when the three men still hadn't arrived.

All three students were currently enrolled in Stanford Graduate School of Business. The students were killed when the Jeep Cherokee they were riding in veered off a cliff on Highway 1 close to Big Sur.

"This is a tragic loss for the Stanford community for three brilliant and promising students who had so much to contribute to the world, and lost their lives too suddenly and too soon," said Stanford President John Hennessy.

According to the Ohio State University Rocket Team advisor, Todd Knight, Springer was instrumental to the program's success. "Micah Springer was the first president of the organization and top fund raiser that allowed us to build the program into what is has become," Knight said in an online posting.

Authorities are still investigating the cause of the accident.

Springer, of Columbus, Ohio, and Nguyen, of Raleigh, North Carolina, were first-year graduate students. In addition to attending the business school, Springer was a graduate student working on a PhD in Bio-Nano Technology. Sahm, of Columbus, Ohio, and a graduate of Harvard, was a second-year student in the Stanford master's program.

Obituary: http://www.legacy.com/Dispatch/Obituaries.asp?Page=Notice&PersonID=118846513