Today's Featured Biography

 
Jim Simrall

I dropped out of LHS in 1961 after my Junior year and enrolled in William Jewell (a girl was involved, of course). After one semester I could see that wasn't going to work out, so I went to work in KC and enrolled in a business college.

In May of 1963 I quit my job, married the girl, and moved to California with all of our worldly possessions in a 1956 Chevy sedan with a two speed Powerglide transmission. I went to work for Lockheed that month at Vandenberg AFB and have worked for Lockheed ever since, and I am still working.

I lived in Santa Maria, CA, for five years while earning an AA at Allan Hancock JC in Santa Maria and a BS in Business at Cal Poly (officially, California Polytechnic State University) in San Luis Obispo, CA. Meanwhile, I worked nights for Lockheed as a clerk in the telemetry group.

At this point we realized we had different visions of the future and got divorced.

I transferred to Lockheed's facility in Sunnyvale, CA. While there I earned an MBA from the Univ. of Santa Clara. I stayed in Sunnyvale for 10 years rising through the ranks as a software developer.

In 1977 I met Nancy, who worked for the government, while she was on a trip to our plant in Sunnyvale to monitor progress on our project.

In 1978 I moved to Maryland and became a consultant to the National Security Agency, still working for Lockheed.

In 1992 that work was winding down and the Hubble Space Telescope, which Lockheed built in Sunnyvale, was about to have its first servicing mission. This is where the astonauts go up in the shuttle and update the instruments and fix anything that has broken. So I started working at Goddard Space Flight Center on HST. GSFC is about 10 miles down the road from NSA. I am now the lead network engineer for the HST ground computer network.

HST launched in 1990 and was serviced in 1993, 1997, 1999, 2002, and 2009. I worked everyone of these servicing missions, but after this last one I realized I am getting way too old to work 12 consecutive 12 hours shifts.

The launch was delayed four years by the Challenger diaster, and the last servicing mission was delayed five years by the Columbia disaster. With the retirement of the shuttle, there will be no more servicing missions, but HST will continue to be operated until some critical component fails. And, of course, there is always the possibility of robotic missions or a new manned vehicle, but probably not while I am still working.

Nancy and I bought a house on Deep Creek, which is a little inlet off of the Magothy River, which is a bigger inlet off of the Chesapeake Bay. She left the government and has worked for Lockheed Martin herself for more than 25 years.

And 33 years later I am still in Maryland with Nancy, and 24 years later Nancy and I are still living in the same house on the water, playing with our two cats, drinking wine, and watching the boats go by.

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