GRAA NEWSLETTER
P.O. Box 1184, Greenbelt, MD 20768-1184

IMPORTANT DATES

COMMENTS FROM TONY COMBERIATE AND ARLIN KRUEGER:

Happy Holidays to Everyone!!
We celebrated the holidays with a special December luncheon with a different agenda. Instead of having a formal speaker, we gave those members in attendance the opportunity to say a few words about their time at Goddard, how they came to work at Goddard, or to tell any other interesting stories. Besides Board members Tony, Arlin, Jan Kalshoven, and Ron Muller, we also heard from Ron Browning, Ron Barasch, John Baniszewski, and Kathleen Beers. Tony Miller sang and played the guitar and led the group in some holiday songs. John Baniszewski also told an interesting Civil War story of how both the winning and losing generals were project managers. In fact, you can see one of Robert E. Lee’s projects in the Baltimore harbor: Fort McHenry! It was nice to get to know each other just a little bit better.

Alberta Moran is stepping down from being the contact for GRAA luncheon reservations. Please make your reservations for the upcoming luncheons by using our Message Center until we have a replacement for Alberta. Just send an email to: graalunch@gmail.com by noon on the Friday before the luncheon, so that we can notify the American Legion, who prepares the lunches for our meetings.

Unfortunately, due to the latest COVID uncertainty, NASA centers have delayed their opening and gradual return to what will become a new normal. Goddard remains in Stage 2 of the NASA Framework for Returning to on-site work, but telework continues to be the norm for those employees who are able to work from home.

At our recent GRAA board meeting, we discussed plans for next year. We cannot yet come on the Center to resume mailing hard copy newsletters to members. After our biyearly election of GRAA officers, we plan to send out an updated Membership Directory and include a hardcopy newsletter that will reach all of our members. We still have 1083 members without an email address out of our 2488 members. So, if you are in contact with any of those not receiving our email newsletters, please ask them to send their email address to goddardretirees@gmail.com. If that is not an option, all of our newsletters are on our website at goddardretirees.org. We are also trying to ensure that recent retirees know how to join GRAA and keep up with both their old colleagues and Goddard current events.

Special Note: Please help to make the Directory current by correcting outdated information about your former colleagues. If you know a new postal or email address or that the person has deceased, please pass this information to goddardretirees@gmail.com.

REMEMBERING OUR FORMER COLLEAGUES:

• Richard Alan Krogel, 61, of Davidsonville, Maryland passed away on November 28, 2021, peacefully surrounded by his loving wife and children after a 4-year battle with cancer. Richard received a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer and Information Science in 1998 from the University of Maryland. He began his career at Goddard as an Electronic Specialist for the Network Operations Control Center. His next assignment was to support GSFC Mission Operations as Senior Electronics System Technician where he redesigned a NASCOM line interface, maintained and provided support to three spacecraft control centers. He would later be assigned to his last position as a Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network (STDN) Program as Senior Principal Systems Engineer supporting the Flight Dynamics Facility. He was awarded the NASA First Shuttle Flight Achievement Award, for his contributions to the first Space Transportation System Mission and was honored to view the launch of “Columbia” from Kennedy Space Center.
• Berlin Brown Wittig, 90, of Upper Marlboro, Md., died Friday, Oct. 8, 2021, at Capital Region Medical Center in Largo, Md. He was born April 15, 1931 in Criders, Va. and graduated from Broadway High School in 1948 and from Capital Radio Engineering Institute (CREI) in 1960. He worked in both the RF Instrumentation Section and the Advanced Signal Processing Branch in the Engineering Directorate He retired from NASA, Goddard Space Flight Center in 1994, after 33 years. He served two years in the U.S. Army and six years in the Army Reserves.
• William Landy Cook III (Will) of Columbia and Royal Oak, Maryland died on Saturday, November 27, 2021. He had just turned 79 years old. Although he was 6' 4", Will did not have the coordination for basketball; he was more interested in painting and other non-athletic pursuits. Upon graduation from the Gilman School in Baltimore, Will went to Lehigh University, where he found an interest in Engineering Mechanics. He then attended graduate school at Purdue University, earning his Master’s degree in Astronautics with a minor in Human Factors Engineering. Will’s first job after graduating from Purdue was with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, where he was hired as the youngest engineer on a project to develop a new computer program to perform static and dynamic analysis of complex structures such as satellites and earth station antennas. Will later earned his Doctor of Science degree in Computer Science from George Washington University while continuing to work at NASA full-time.
• William Donald (Bill) Hibbard, 95, died December 14, 2021, in Williamsport, MD. Bill was born March 13, 1926, in Youngstown, OH. He enlisted in the Navy when he graduated from high school and served as a Petty Officer, Electronics, working on radar in the Navy until 1946. In 1950, he graduated from Ohio University in Electrical Engineering. He joined the Naval Ordnance Lab in White Oak, MD and worked on proximity fuses. He joined Goddard in 1961, starting at the Anacostia Naval Air Station in Washington, DC. When Building 6 in Greenbelt was completed, his work moved there. He was an Aerospace Engineer until 1995 at Goddard, doing Systems Engineering. In 1970 he tested several scale models of a low frequency radio telescope with a spinning paraboloidal antenna about one mile in diameter. His favorite job was with the Applications Explorer Missions Program. He finished his career at Goddard as systems manager for SOHO. He was a Systems Engineer and a member of IEEE. After retiring from NASA, he moved to Williamsport, MD and started Towpath Controls which made energy control panels for motels. He was a volunteer with the Canaan Valley Wildlife Refuge, the C&O Canal Association, the C&O National Historical Park, and the Walkersville Southern Railroad. A memorial service is planned next year.

FROM THE GODDARD ARCHIVES — IT HAPPENED IN JANUARY:

January 26, 1978, Delta launched IUE, International Ultraviolet Explorer, Explorer 33, a very successful cooperative astronomy mission with the UK. It was a major Goddard in-house built spacecraft.

TREASURER’S REPORT: Treasurer Jackie Gasch received tax-deductible donations from Karl Peters, Eugene Humphrey, Henry Anderson, Michael McCumber, James Costrell, Richard Strafella, Carroll Dudley, Bernie Cullinan, James Mannion and Ronald Barasch. Carol Boquist made a donation in memory of Jan Owings and Peter Hui made a donation in memory of Harry Montgomery.