by Thomas D.
After graduating from City College of New
York in 1961, as an electrical engineer, I left the East Coast to join Lockheed
Missiles and Space Company in Sunnyvale, California, just after a hiring freeze
was lifted. I began as an instrumentation engineer and became a responsible
equipment engineer shortly thereafter. This was my opportunity to work in Area
40, an engineer's dream, with an assembly line of Agena spacecraft. Through the
early years, I moved to positions in subsystem engineering, design integration and
systems engineering. I was then assigned to work on major special programs subcontracts
and then to program management on the Hubble Space Telescope, Lunar Prospector,
IKONUS, SBIRS and SIRTF programs. In my final years with Lockheed Martin, I
served as vice president of NASA programs and, subsequently, defensive systems.
I will always be thankful for the opportunity to experience such an exciting
career. I attribute my success on all the programs to very talented technical,
management, program controls and support personnel who worked side-by-side with
me as a team. I have many cherished memories, among which was being awarded the
NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal,
several Lockheed Martin NOVA and Team Awards, and the Outstanding Career Award. I retired back
to the East Coast in 2004 after more than 42 years of service to both Lockheed
Martin and our country's important satellite programs.
