Grammy-nominated Spirit engineer combines knowledge, talent to inspire next generation

Music and planes have always shared a flight space for Roy Moye III.

Three months after he was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany, to a U.S. Army officer, he was on a plane back to the states.

He still keeps notebook paper from when he was in first grade, filled with drawings of airplanes.

“I was so obsessed,” he said with a laugh. “Still am to this day.”

After his parents – his father Black, his mother Puerto Rican and Mexican – moved to their native Ohio and then Washington State, the family settled down in the Kansas City suburb of Raytown, Mo.

Growing up in a house where his father and grandfather sang, Moye followed in their musical heritage. By 15 he was auditioning for “American Idol,” even though a rejection there dampened his spirit for singing and drove his concentration to aeronautics.

Moye ended up combining the left-brain side known for science and the right-brain side known for creativity by creating “STEMusic,” 15 songs and counting that celebrate Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

He will be among the performers featured at Family Jam fest, from 3 to 7 p.m. on Oct. 8, at the Capitol Federal Amphitheatre in Andover. Headlining performers are the children’s music duo Koo Koo Kanga Roo.

Finding peace at Wichita State

By the time Moye was a senior in high school, he was intent on studying aerospace engineering. The nation’s top school, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Fla., and Ohio State University, each had accepted him, but he realized finances might not make it a possibility.

After a web search for “aerospace engineering college,” he discovered Wichita State University. Moye admitted with a grin that the only exposure he’d had to Wichita after living for years in the KC area was the “W” city on the edge of TV weather maps. He looked further into it.

“I was like, ‘Air Capital of the World?’,” he recalled.

The tour guide for him and his father at WSU was also an engineering student, who volunteered to forgo the dorm tour and take him to the department’s wind tunnel, which sold him.

Moye recalls looking over the outfield fence at Eck Stadium in 2010, mulling his decision.

“I’m very spiritual, a person who loves God. I remember looking over the fence of the baseball stadium and could feel the presence of God,” he said. “I was so mad about the peace that I felt.”

One of the first people to notice Moye at WSU was Kaye Monk-Morgan, who at the time led the math and science program at the university.

“I was just taken by this bright and shiny, in all the right ways, young man who was excited about being in a college and all he was going to achieve,” recalled Monk-Morgan, now chief impact officer with the Kansas Leadership Center.

Monk-Morgan’s husband was an aerospace engineer and, seeing there were few Black students involved in the study, made connections with Moye.

As adviser of the National Society of Black Engineers, Monk-Morgan worked closely with Moye, a two-time president while at WSU.

Once a student at WSU, Moye’s musical yearnings returned. He recalled a precious gift from his father – a cassette of Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem before the Super Bowl in 1991 – and volunteered to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Shocker sports events.

“That’s when it actually clicked,” he said, feeling like “You have something.”

Moye recalls his first anthem, sung during a Shocker men’s basketball scrimmage, when Koch Arena “erupted” when he concluded. Through the next five years, he regularly performed at a variety of sports and campus events and continues to this day singing the anthem before Kansas City Chiefs and Royals games.

He graduated from WSU after five years, becoming involved with the National Society of Black Engineers and “trying to get more people who look like me in STEM.”

Engineering and music

He spent two summers as an intern at Spirit AeroSystems, all the while singing whenever he could. His music was discovered and sampled by a Wichita rapper, who took him under his wing and helped him hone his musical skills, such as writing for the beats of a song.

“That opened my world,” he said. “He was such a champion.”

By June 2015 he had graduated WSU and released his first R&B album, and the rush from putting his music into the world began to dampen his thoughts about his chosen career.

“I just knew it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he said. “It was cool to say I was designing parts for planes, but I didn’t really care. I liked the plane, the whole plane.”

He gave himself a five-year deadline to decide.

“I struggled through it,” he said. “I’m not your traditional engineer … an analytical problem solver.”

By 2016, he was working with a Grammy-winning gospel producer who handed him the award and said, “You’ll have one of your own some day.”

Monk-Morgan said she heard plenty of doubts from Moye that he could combine the two facets of his life.

“I thought it was absolutely possible,” she recalled. “A lot of our discussion early on was that he didn’t think so. He didn’t want to choose because he didn’t know an engineer who does those things.”

Purpose in music

Moye considered moving to Atlanta, Nashville or Los Angeles to give his musical career a jump start.

He felt more solidified in his musical career and his location when, during Wichita’s Riverfest in 2017, in the absence of a singer that travels with rapper Common, Moye was called to sing the song “Glory” on stage.

“The Common moment was a huge God moment. Unless God tells me to go somewhere else, Wichita is where I’m going to be,” Moye said. “God has opened up so many doors for me right here in this city.”

Moye was in demand from engineering groups, trying to reach younger generations to get them excited about STEM topics.

“I didn’t want them to love math,” he said. “I just wanted them to feel safe and associate a good feeling.”

He turned the R&B song “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” into “Watch me solve this equation,” and could see “the excitement of kids running up to the board to solve the problems.”

Moye attended a National Society of Black Engineers convention and brought along a recording of his own music, asking for it to be played before a youth karaoke night.

“The kids are vibing out to it and the parents are losing their minds, because they’re understanding more of what I’m saying because they’re working as engineers,” he recalled.

By January 2019, he had recorded a YouTube video with his music that has received nearly 46 million views.

“We’re still trying to figure out how this is happening,” he said.

Grammy nomination, new opportunities

Still working as an engineer, but at home during COVID precautions, Moye vividly recalls Jan. 6, 2021, when he was asked to come to Spirit and receive an award and was told a position had opened up in the human resources department at the company.

He became a talent acquisition specialist for Spirit, leading orientations and recruiting new employees.

“I’ve learned so many incredible things and there have been so many opportunities I’ve had when I’ve been at Spirit,” he said.

And his co-workers went all out when Moye was nominated for a Grammy Award earlier this year as part of 1Tribe Collective, a culturally diverse group of 26 performers that combined forces for an album celebrating the accomplishments of persons of color. “All One Tribe,” which included “Black Lives Made STEM History” by Moye, received a nomination for best children’s album.

Although the album didn’t win, Moye was able to take his parents to the awards ceremony in April.

Moye, who turned 30 in July, wants to continue combining his knowledge and his talents.

“You’re not just a songwriter and a singer,” he tells himself. “You’re someone who went and got the degree, worked in the industry for six years as a design engineer making parts for planes.”

Monk-Morgan said Moye is doing more good than he realizes.

“I don’t know if either of us imagined what he’s doing now, being able to take the academic component of STEM and tying that with the musicality and fun of his presentation to help young people not only master tough STEM concepts, but to energize them about studying that area longer,” she said. “I think he’ll go as far as he wants to.”

He has created STEMusic, with a four-song EP released and hopes of encouraging young people to have careers involving the sciences.

“STEMusic is all about trying to increase that reputation. Our mission is to inspire the next generation of multicultural STEM professionals with entertaining music,” he said.

Moye wants to record more, and keeps hinting to his bosses that their sponsorship could make a difference.

“I keep telling Spirit we need a whole album,” he said with a laugh.