Foil: 53 Panel: 1 Column: 1 Line: 6

Wall of Honor Level:
Air and Space Sponsor

Honored by:
Judy Cunningham

BSEE from Auburn, Master of Engineering, University of Florida

Graduated from H.S. at age 16. Attempted to enlist in the Air Force to learn to fly jets. Under 18 I needed parents consent which they refused. At age 18 I had developed nearsightedness and in the early 1950?€™s the military didn?€™t allow you to fly jets if you required corrective glasses.

Upon graduation from Auburn (actually API at that time) I went to work for Melpar, Inc. designing and developing flight simulators for the military. I worked on the Air Force F-101, the Navy A4D and an Army helicopter. Single at the time I spent many hours after work flying the simulators when the other engineers had gone home. After about 5 years I went to work for Lockheed on the Polaris missile project. I was at the Navy Weapons Annex in Charleston, SC assisting the Navy in assembling and testing Polaris missiles to be loaded on the first Polaris nuclear submarine, the 598 George Washington. On the weekends I took flight lessons in a Piper Tri champ and was about to solo when I moved to Orlando to work on the Pershing missile. Then to Denver to work on the Titan III. Next I joined GE and participated in the activation and operation of the control center for the Nimbus weather satellite.

Next GE moved me to Daytona Beach. FL to work on the Apollo Support program. It was during this time that I earned my Master's degree by going to night school. After almost 5 years I joined Martin in Denver to work on the Mars Lander project Viking. Later when I refused to move to JPL in California, I was assigned to flight crew support on Skylab. My group worked directly with the astronauts in assisting their preparing for the first manned space station. Each crew had 3 astronauts and there were 3 prime crews and 2 backup crews. We had much to learn about maned space stations at that time. When the third crew splashed down I left aerospace work and went to work in the cable industry. I have never lost my love of aerospace. My grandson is now participating in those type of programs I think. His work is classified so I'm not sure.