Colonel Roche, our school’s founder
Born in Eyguière on 24 June 1861, Jean-Baptiste Roche studied in
Marseilles and went up to Polytechnique in 1881. After various assignments in
the south of France and Algeria, he became Deputy Director of the Versailles
Ecole du Genie and this instilled in him the desire to
devote his life to technical teaching. He retired from this position at
forty-six years of age to become Principal of the Marseille Graduate School
of engineering for a further two years.
In 1909, he foresaw something of the scale the future aircraft industry was to take on in the world and its needs and went on to found the Ecole Supérieure d’Aéronautique et de Constructions Mécaniques, the first in line of the aeronautical schools.