Colonel Roche

Colonel Roche, our school’s founder

Born in Eyguière on 24 June 1861, Jean-Baptiste Roche studied in Marseille and went up to Polytechnique in 1881. After various assignments inthe 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 Schoolof engineering for a further two years.

In 1909, he foresaw something of the scale the future aircraft industry was totake 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.