Professor Breidenthal completed his undergraduate work at Wichita State University in Aeronautical Engineering in 1973. He obtained his doctorate degree in Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology in 1979. He was then a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Caltech until coming to the University of Washington in 1980. Professor Breidenthal has received support from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, NASA and Asea Brown Boveri, Ltd. of Switzerland. He has done consulting work for The Boeing Company, Rocketdyne, ARCO Alaska, U.S. Gypsum, Peerless Manufacturing, Asea Brown Boveri, Learjet, Vornado, Mallen Research and Centriflo.