Carl "JR" Gray

After graduation, I went into the NASA Engineering Apprentice School and earned a degree as an Engineering Technician in 1974. I worked in many of the wind tunnels and laboratories until I realized that wasn’t what I wanted or needed to do for the rest of my career. So I decided that I wanted to be part of the creative part of NASA and not just an implementer of someone else’s ideas. That took several years of working full time and going to school at night until I finally finished my PhD and then the switch was pulled. I spent the remainder of my career designing facilities, flight vehicle, space craft, and managing several engineering organization that designed and build anything from roads and commodes, to cryogenic wind tunnels, systems on the shuttles and space lab, many science instruments that are still on orbit and collecting data well beyond their design life, and sadly trying to figure out why we lost two shuttles and 14 astronauts.

We all have our stories and cherish our memories and wonder where the time went. I retired to Williamsburg a few years ago, bought a home in an “Active Community” where I have been working on finishing it the way I enjoy. I guess that I have gone back to my technician days - in part, because of the economy and the local universities are not expanding their adjunct staff which I find very sad for the future that follows all of us.