Go back with me to those days in the 60’s and 70’s-to learn about the chosen, handpicked IBM launch support team that lived and breathed the Apollo Program and made it all happen. This book is truthful in as much as I can remember after more than 45 years. Certain scenes are imaginative re-creations based on my recollections. This memoir is historically correct however, names have been changed, events compressed, characters combined, and some incidents have been changed to protect identities. This creative, non-fiction memoir is based on my actual experiences over a nine-year period. How did these marvelous men and women who achieved so much get through it all? How did their families fare? What became of them when the Apollo Program ended? Yes…it’s also about my metamorphosis from a naïve, sexually unsatisfied young woman to a successful one in every avenue. This book is about some of the everyday people who made up this team: the managers, the programmers, the systems analysts, the engineers, the secretaries and typists, the writers…the men and women who made up IBM’s launch support team for Apollo. I’m going to tell you about, what I believe to be, one of the greatest technical teams ever assembled in American history. NASA’s Manned Flight Awareness Program stated it best: Zero Tolerance-perfection was expected. I advanced from the typing pool, to secretary, and finally, writer-a witness to all the majesty and scientific ingenuity America could produce. The rise in the awareness and respect of a woman’s role in business began in the 60’s and the Cape was no exception. I was a witness to the fact that there were heartaches, failures, divorces, losses, challenges to the individuals who made up the Apollo launch support team…those individuals who day by day, endured the pressure, the constant challenge to make it happen despite all the tribulations and difficulties. I can think of no other place in history that I would trade for the opportunity I had to witness the excitement, dedication and teamwork that I experienced on the Apollo Program during those magnificent days."
When it came my turn, I said, "Well, I was present at the most significant historical event of the 20th century that America has ever witnessed…the Launch of Apollo 11…and the subsequent landing of men on the moon. Several interesting answers followed: Gettysburg Address, Columbus discovering America, the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Questions began with which three persons, living or dead, would you like to invite to dinner? Finally, the question was posed, At which historical event would you have liked to have been present? It consisted of going around the room and providing answers from questions that would be asked. We placed our orders and during the wait my grandson suggested we play a game. My daughter, Cathy, had married a very nice Jewish lawyer and their youngest daughter, Eliza, would be celebrating her 13th birthday with all the joy and fun that the bat mitzvah ceremony promises. Recently on a trip to Potomac, Maryland, the whole family, consisting of my three daughters, spouses and grandchildren, sat down to dinner at a huge table in a private room in one of the finer restaurants.
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