<p>Here are the schools of the top ten government contractors CEO’s. I use these companies as a representative sample because their work is primarily science, engineering, and technology focused, so we would expect the people at the helm to be quite the successful technical people. MIT is in one person’s profile.</p>
<p>Lockheed CEO
BS Slippery Rock University (Summa Cum Laude)
MS Engineering Management NYU Poly
MBA Columbia</p>
<p>Northrop CEO
BS/MS EE MIT
Executive MBA UCLA</p>
<p>Boeing CEO
BA Yale
MBA Harvard</p>
<p>SAIC CEO
BS EE Virginia Military Institute
MBA Golden Gate University</p>
<p>Raytheon CEO
BS Industrial Engineering, Cal Poly SLO (Magna Cum Laude)
MBA Golden Gate University</p>
<p>General Dynamics CEO
BS Naval Academy</p>
<p>Hewlett-Packard CEO
BA Princeton
MBA Harvard</p>
<p>Booz Allen Hamilton CEO
BS Electrical Engineering UPenn
MS/PhD EE UIUC w/minors in math and nuclear physics</p>
<p>CSC CEO
BA Ohio University
MBA Drexel University</p>
<p>DynCorp CEO
BS EE Lafayette College</p>
<p>While we’re at it, lets pick some modern era American scientists.</p>
<p>Persi Diaconis
BS City College of New York
MA/PhD Harvard</p>
<p>Alan Guth
BS/MS/PhD MIT</p>
<p>Donald Knuth
BS Physics Case Western
PhD Caltech</p>
<p>Gordon Moore
BS Chemistry UC Berkeley
PhD Chemistry Caltech w/minor in Physics</p>
<p>Allan Sandage
BS UIUC
PhD Caltech</p>
<p>Charles Hard Townes
BS Physics & BA Modern Languages Furman University (Summa Cum Laude)
MA Physics Duke University
PhD Caltech</p>
<p>Craig Venter
College of San Mateo (community college)
BS Biochemistry UC San Diego
PhD Physiology and Pharmacology UC San Diego</p>
<p>James D. Watson
BS Zoology University of Chicago (19 years old)
PhD Indiana University (22 years old)</p>
<p>Steven Weinberg
BS Cornell
PhD Physics Princeton</p>
<p>Edward Witten
BA History Brandeis University w/minor in linguistics
UW-Madison Economics dropout
PhD Physics Princeton</p>
<p>Neil deGrasse Tyson
BA Physics Harvard
MA Astronomy UT-Austin
M.Phil./PhD Astrophysics University of Texas but transferred to Columbia University</p>
<p>It seems to me that places like Caltech are where you go AFTER your non-elite undergrad degree.</p>
<p>My point is, that while perhaps everyone on this list could have gone to one of the “top 3,” the fact that they didn’t speaks volumes about the different journeys one can take to be successful. As well, even with today’s fierce competition, did the education at schools like Lafayette or Furman go down in quality? I basically believe that these people have proven that it matters less where you went to undergrad and matters more what you did afterward.</p>