Erich W. Wolf

I grew up in the Washington DC area, and from a young age I was fascinated with things that flew so seemingly effortlessly through the air. Although my balsa, paper and glue projects were not always successful, I was thrilled to have a hand-launched glider leave my running hand and take to the air. As I grew older, my projects grew in sophistication and successes. This motivated me to seek a career in aeronautics, which is now called aerospace.
Out of College I hired on with General Dynamics Space Systems Division in San Diego in the engineering research and development, department, home of the Atlas Launch Vehicle. There I worked along side engineers who, had helped launch John Glenn on the USA's first sub-orbital flight around the world on the Atlas Launch Vehicle.

I was very lucky to have worked personally on the design and analysis of the following programs. They were, for the most part, the firsts, of a kind.

Centaur Upper stage development
C-141 Empennage
C-5 Empennage
F-111 Wing High lift devices
Space Shuttle Fuselage
Convair 240 Rolls Royce Dart conversion
Centaur adaptation for the Viking I & II missions to Mars.
Various mission payload adapters for Atlas/Centaur
McDonald YC-15 STOL experimental Military transport
McDonald DC10 passenger jet
Tomahawk Cruise Missile
Titan I and Titan IV Centaur integration and launch operations

I attended various public and parochial schools and graduated from Archbishop Carroll High in Washington, DC.

University of Maryland at College Park was the institution where I earned my degree in Aeronautical Engineering. From the University of California, San Diego, I received the certification for the Executive Program for Scientists and Engineers. I'm also a registered Professional Engineer in the state of California.

When the Atlas Launch vehicle was sold to Martin Denver Division I spent, the last five years of my career in Colorado, working for Lockheed-Martin before returning to San Diego to retire.