I worked alongside my dad one
summer
by Lisa L.
My father started working for Martin Marietta in January 1962. His
salary was $132 a week, which was considered very good at that time. Today, it would
be well below the poverty level!
Dad worked on the Bullpup, Pershing and Sprint missile programs and on
various research and development tasks. However, his most memorable program was
TADS/PNVS. He was program director for PNVS and was technical director for
TADS. He was selected as engineer of the year in 1979. A few years later, I
worked for Martin Marietta during the summer of 1982 in the test program set
arena where we wrote test programs for testing TADS/PNVS. It was a father-and-daughter
scenario!
TADS/PNVS was the main weapon system used at the start of the Gulf War
to neutralize Iraq’s air defense system. It worked to perfection with the
entire Iraqi air defense systems destroyed in one evening engagement. My father
was so proud of that system! It would be months later when he would get to see
actual video from that engagement.
