Before we knew it,
we had left the ground.

Bruce Lundin’s 35-year career began in 1943 when the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) lab that would become the NASA Glenn Research Center was still known as the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory. At first Lundin worked on engine cooling and heat transfer for piston engines, but almost immediately he was thrown into the secret new field of jet engines. This work between 1943 and 1946 yielded concepts such as the afterburner, variable-area nozzle, and reverse thruster— components that remain basic elements of many modern jet aircraft.

At only 33 years old, Lundin was promoted to Chief of the Engine Research Division (1952 to 1958), overseeing full-scale engine testing in simulated flight conditions. The research contributed significantly to the performance of modern commercial and military aircraft. During this period, Lundin also was responsible for establishing requirements for future aircraft and ramjet engines. In this role, he advocated the expansion of the Lab’s research to spacecraft propulsion. Although others at the lab were also interested in space, he was among the most vocal. Lundin felt passionately that the NACA should not only participate in, but coordinate, all space-related research.

Andrew (Andy) Stofan made significant contributions to the center and agency in three distinct capacities—researcher, program manager and center director. His propellant management work in the 1960s was important to the success of the Centaur rocket. His management of the demanding and complex Titan/Centaur Program and the larger Launch Vehicles Division produced some of NASA’s biggest successes of the 1970s. Perhaps most significantly, as its center director in the early 1980s, Stofan resurrected the demoralized center by acquiring several new high-profile programs and implementing his trademark inclusive management style.

Stofan earned his bachelor’s degree in math and physics at Hiram College in 1957, and a Bachelor of Science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1958. He joined the Lewis laboratory in 1958, just months before it became part of the new NASA space agency. As a research engineer in the Propulsion Aerodynamics Division, Stofan studied ejector nozzles for supersonic aircraft. Ejector nozzles, which accelerate thrust, were a key component of the Lockheed SR–71, which was under development at the time. Stofan’s research focused on ejectors with variable divergent shrouds.

Lawrence J. Ross serves as Director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Lewis Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. He was appointed to this position in July 1990. He is the seventh Director of the Lewis Research Center in its 50-year history.

As Director, Ross is responsible for planning, organizing and directing the activities required to accomplish the missions assigned to the Center. Lewis is engaged in research, technology and systems development programs in aeronautical propulsion, space propulsion, space power, and space sciences/applications. Ross is responsible for the day-to-day management of these programs, which involve an annual budget of approximately $1 billion, almost 3000 civil service employees and 1900 support service contractors, and more than 550 specialized research facilities located near Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and at Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio.

Grandfather of Glenn’s rocket propulsion expertise and leading advocate for liquid hydrogen as a propellant for upper stage rockets such as Saturn and Centaur. Sloop was raised in Charlotte, North Carolina, and lived in Fairview Park, Ohio, while working for Glenn in the 1950s. He passed away in 1992.

Influential architect who modernized the center’s approach to facility planning and design. Strickland was born in Philadelphia and raised in Cleveland. He also lived in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, for many years. He passed away in 2011.

Internationally recognized expert in tribology and bearings research. A native of Chicago, Zaretsky lives in Moreland Hills, Ohio.

Dr. Dorothy M. Simon, once referred to as “the most important woman in space science and possibly the most important lady scientist in the country,” first achieved international recognition in the early 1950s as a combustion researcher at the NACA’s Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory. She went on to become a leading expert on rocket propulsion systems, a pioneering female in corporate management, and a lifelong advocate for women in the sciences.

Simon was aware of the sciences from an early age but did not decide to go into chemistry as a profession until college. “The desire to put bits of knowledge into a whole was too strong to resist,” she recalled. She earned her doctorate in physical chemistry in 1945.

Dorothy joined NACA Lewis as a research scientist in the Fuels and Combustion Division. She soon became passionate about her new field of combustion. Simon developed a method for measuring flame velocity for various types of fuels and determined the minimum diameter tube necessary to maintain the flame. Engine manufacturers used this data to improve their engine designs.

Bonnie McBride joined the center in 1957, initially working on the generation of thermodynamic data for calculating chemical equilibrium composition and rocket performance. In the mid-1960s, she used FORTRAN IV to do a major rewrite of the code that Gordon had been working on. The resulting code, Chemical Equilibrium Code for 1971 (CEC71), was distributed widely. In 1967, McBride and Gordon consolidated and documented the computer codes used in calculating and fitting thermodynamic data into a single FORTRAN IV code, Properties and Coefficients 1 (PAC1).

Annie Easley had never heard of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA) when she read an article about twin sisters who were “human computers” at the Aircraft Engine Research Laboratory in Cleveland, Ohio. The Lab (the predecessor of the NASA Glenn Research Center) was in need of people with strong math skills, and she was in need of a job after recently relocating from Birmingham, Alabama. Two weeks after reading the article, Easley began a career that would span 34 years. She would contribute to numerous programs as a computer scientist, inspire many through her enthusiastic participation in outreach programs, break down barriers for women and people of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) fields, and win the admiration and respect of her coworkers.

Ruth Begun was the first woman to study doctorate-level physics at the University of Berlin with Albert Einstein, and lived her long and impressive life using the scientific method as her compass. She worked at Interchemical in New York City, where she developed and patented a new device called a viscometer, which evinces the speed at which presses bleed ink.

Ruth N. Weltman completed a 25
year career at Lewis. After joining the
center in 1948 she became a supervisory
engineer in the Instrument Division.
She was a section head in the
Space Power Systems Division for six
years and was a program
manager in the Safety Technology
Branch, Office of the Director of Aerospace Safety Research & Data Institute.

Ruth Weltmann Begun provided funds
to Case Western Reserve University
(CWRU) to endow a Begun professorship
chair. In addition, she committed
funds to establish a multidisciplinary
Begun center at CWRU's Mandel School
of Applied Social Sciences

Dr. Patricia M. O’Donnell was a leader in energy conversion and storage at the Lewis Research Center for 44 years. She researched the conversion of high-energy propellants to produce rocket thrust, the conversion of solar energy to electrical power, and the storage of converted energy in batteries.

After earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Case Western Reserve University, O’Donnell joined the NACA’s Lewis Flight Propulsion Laboratory in 1954 as an analytical chemist in the Propulsion Systems Division’s Fuels Chemistry Section. The section was unique at the time in that women occupied four of its seven research positions.

In his own words, Bill Goette attended school at Purdue and graduated in 1956. Prior to that time, John Sloop interviewed me at Purdue and invited me to come to work at Lewis. So I worked in the summer of ’55 as an engineer’s aide and the lab made me an offer, so I came back once I graduated in ’56. So I really started in ’55 at the old rocket lab. In ’56 I did a variety of tasks, kind of a mix if you will at that time of operations and research work. One of my jobs was having hardware built that would be tested in cell 22. Another part of it was analyzing data from rocket thrust chamber testing. At that time as you’ve heard earlier we were doing test work, different propellant combinations and different injector designs trying to optimize the performance with a particular propellant combination.

Photography Credit: Herb Ascherman, Jr