Foil: 50 Panel: 1 Column: 1 Line: 13

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Leader

Honored by:
Marielle Gomez-Kaifer

John "Jack" Cheney Wilson, Jr. was born in Copper Cliff, Canada in 1916, the son of a WWI pilot/engineer and a school teacher who later settled in Missouri. Born with achromotopsia (complete colorblindness), he had further vision setbacks after suffering measles. Jack used jewelers loupes to work on electronic equipment for RCA, IBM, and NASA. His daughter and granddaughter sorted capacitors and resistors for his Florida-based workshop. He built lightweight circuitry that was used on the Mercury and early Apollo missions. Jack was entirely self-taught, having been unable to attend university. In his free time, he enjoyed tutoring students in math and physics, and jerry-rigging basic cable boxes, since he thought the airwaves should be free for everyone. Jack died in 1985, having lived to see the first home desktop computers, which delighted him, and only the successes of the Space Shuttle missions. He had hoped to live to see a permanently manned low-orbit space station, Freedom, a 1980's project which later evolved into the present-day International Space Station.