About Us. 1  Tidewater Finance Company was established in 1992 and is proud to serve as one of the leading subprime lenders in the indirect finance industry. 2  As a nationwide special finance provider, TMC works with both independent and franchise dealerships to provide subprime auto financing options to customers.
Best known as: The first African-American to fly in space. Astronaut Guion Bluford became the first African-American in space when he flew on the space shuttle Challenger in 1983. Bluford was a former Air Force fighter pilot who flew 144 combat missions in the Vietnam War in 1966-67.
This seven-day mission carried classified military payloads and ended with a landing at Edwards AFB, California. In his four shuttle missions, Guion Bluford has logged over 688 hours in space. Colonel Bluford has written and presented several scientific papers in the area of computational fluid dynamics.