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Posted by KenaiGary [65.74.48.28] on Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 17:00:57 :
In Reply to: Re: Regarding engineering threads below posted by Clint Dixon [74.206.63.42] on Sunday, April 15, 2012 at 15:21:35 :
When I was a program manager for a NASA contractor at Marshall Space Flight Center, NASA said that there was a major lack of engineering knowledge since the old guys had retired and then for many years they didn't have the budget to hire many. So they had some engineers in their 40s and most fresh out of college.
They asked me to find three old NASA engineers that could be contracted who would teach and mentor the new kids on how it used to be done. I hired one guy who was 85, another who was 82 and one who was 78. Two of them were on Von Braun's rocket team.
The program worked really well and the old ways were not lost. The youngsters were in awe of these guys and well they should be. I met with the old guys weekly for status reports. The old phrase comes to mind, "standing on the shoulders of giants."