Clifford Ingebritson Cummings (1923-2006) was born in San Diego, but grew up in the California desert, attending Coachella Valley High School before entering the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) in Pasadena. Upon graduation with a degree in Physics, he received additional training at the Harvard and MIT Radar Schools while a 1st Lieutenant Radar Officer in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in World War II. He served in postwar Italy helping to reestablish the war-ravaged communications. In 1946, he joined the developing Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he was responsible for Corporal Guided Missile telemetry and later served as the Chief of Systems Engineering. He moved to Washington D.C. in 1958 as JPL’s first representative to the newly formed NASA. He returned to Pasadena as the first Lunar Program Director at JPL and was responsible for unmanned lunar exploration there from 1959-1962.
In 1963, Mr. Cummings continued his involvement in space imagery and exploration as manager for Program Management and Systems Engineering at Xerox’s Electro-Optical Systems Corporation. He then moved to the Department of Defense, holding positions responsible for space reconnaissance and intelligence, first as Special Assistant to the Director of Defense Research and Engineering for Threat Assessment and then as Assistant Director for Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Electromagnetic Warfare in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (1967-1969), where he was instrumental in coordinating and improving intelligence collection activities between the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. He returned to JPL in 1983 as manager of its East Coast Technologies and Applications Programs Office from which he retired in 1991.
Mr. Cummings contributed to the Explorer I, Ranger, Surveyor, Mariner, and Viking space missions. He married Jean McDonald, and they had four children. He served as a leader in his community and local congregations of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was noted for his generosity and compassion. At the time of his death in 2006, he was living in Northern Virginia.