Memorial Tributes Volume 21 (2017) / Chapter Skim
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WALTER B. LaBERGE
WALTER B. LaBERGE
Pages 196-203
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From page 197... ...
After receiving his PhD in physics in the spring of 1950, Walt was selected as a senior aerospace engineer for the first infrared "heat homing" air-to-air missile system, Sidewinder, under development at the Naval Ordinance Test Station in China Lake, California. At its peak, Sidewinder was both a Navy and Air Force program with the highest priority in both services.
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From page 198... ...
In 1957, with a successful physics and engineering record and major technical management experience behind him, Walt was offered a significant job in the aerospace industry. Philco Corporation selected him as director of engineering at its Western Development Laboratories (WDL)
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From page 199... ...
In 1965, the Mission Control Center housed the largest assembly of television switching equipment in the world -- larger even than com mercial studios in New York City -- as well as the largest solid state switching matrices of 20 megacycle bandwidth. This system was driven by more than 1,100 cabinets of electronics
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From page 200... ...
He worked closely with many US astronauts, including Neil Armstrong, Mike Collins, Jim Lovell, and Wally Shirra, as well as NASA flight directors Chris Kraft, Gene Krants, and Glynn Lunney. He returned to government service in 1971 as technical director of the Naval Ordinance Test Station in China Lake, where he had first worked as a young physicist 21 years earlier.
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From page 201... ...
As chief scientist at the Institute for Advanced Technology, his leadership of research at the fron tiers of knowledge and his enthusiastic mentorship of young scientists and engineers propelled the Institute to interna tional leadership in electromagnetic launch and hypervelocity p hysics science and technology. In his Memoirs for My Children (self-published in Austin; 1999)
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From page 202... ...
Walt was very proud of his family history and an avid genealogist, tracking his family line back to Robert de la Berge who came over from Normandy to Québec in 1658. Among Walt's greatest thrills was, at the age of seven, riding in the cab of a locomotive conducted by his maternal grand ather and getting to pull the steam whistle while going f 60 miles per hour.
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From page 203... ...
In addition to his election to the NAE in 1987, he received many honors: • American Theater WWII, 1944 • Pacific Theater WWII, 1945 • Outstanding Young Men of California, 1956 • NASA, Apollo Achievement Award, 1969 • US Navy Superior Civilian Service, 1970 • US Air Force Distinguished Service, 1975 • US Army Distinguished Service, 1979 & 1993 • Department of Defense Distinguished Service, 1980 • Award of Honor, University of Notre Dame, 1990 • The Walter B LaBerge Distinguished Leadership Award Walt's beloved wife of 32 years, Pat, succumbed to cancer in 1982.
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