Dane Hankamer graduated from the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs May 23 with Secretary of Defense, General “Mad Dog” James Mattis presiding over the ceremony.
Hankamer graduates in the top 3 percent in his class at the Air Force Academy.
He earned NCAA Academic All American honors as captain of the Air Force Academy golf team.
He managed to obtain a 3.9 GPA in Operations Research which is a math and economics focused major.
He is a four-time Mountain West Conference scholar athlete and named four times to the conference All Academic team.
Highlights while at the Air Force Academy include an internship at Facebook in the summer of 2017 and leading a senior Capstone project in 2018 working with IBM Watson and Lockheed Martin on improving the F-35 fighter program’s operational sustainability.
Dane graduates the service academy as a 2nd Lieutenant officer. His first assignment is to attend Stanford University to earn a Master’s degree in Computer Science with a focus on Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Hankamer was recently awarded the merit-based scholarship to Stanford and will be the first Air Force Academy graduate to earn Stanford’s renowned AI Master’s degree.
Dane is a Salado HS graduate and was Valedictorian in 2014.
He is the son of Ty Hankamer of Belton and Christina Hankamer of Temple.
He is the grandson of Bob and Doris Hankamer of Salado, Laureli Grey of Phoenix, Arizona, the late Edwin Moehling and the late Buddy Grey.