Apollo and America's Moon Landing Program - Oral Histories of Managers, Engineers, and Workers (Set 3) - including Jay Greene, Griffin, Milt Heflin, Holloway, Jeffs, Kelly (Lunar Module Manager) by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: azw
Publisher: Progressive Management
Published: 2012-08-28T04:00:00+00:00

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Chapter 15: Thomas W. Holloway

Thomas W. Holloway

Aerospace Technician

Head, Apollo Flight Planning Section, Flight Crew Operations Directorate (FCOD)

Head, Mission Operations Section, FCOD

Chief, Flight Planning Branch, Head, Flight Plan Section, FCOD

Flight Director, Flight Operations Directorate (FOD)

Deputy Chief, Flight Operations Integration Office, FOD

Chief, Flight Operations Integration Office, FOD

Chief, Flight Director Office, FOD, Mission Operations Directorate (MOD)

Assistant Director, Space Shuttle Program, MOD

Deputy Manager, Program Integration, Space Shuttle Program

Director, International Space Station Phase I Program (Shuttle-Mir)

Manager, Space Shuttle Program

Manager, International Space Station Program

Interviewed by Rebecca Wright

Houston, TX - 25 July 2002

Wright: Today is July 25, 2002. This oral history with Tommy Holloway is being conducted at the NASA Johnson Space Center for the Center's Oral History Project. Interviewer is Rebecca Wright.

Thank you again for taking your time for the project today. We appreciate that. Mr. Holloway, you announced your retirement just a few weeks ago after devoting forty years to the space agency, many years, and many accomplishments, and, of course, many memories. We'd like to start today with you telling us about how you first came to work for NASA.

Holloway: Well, in 1962, after having spent two years at a little school at Russellville, Arkansas, and then two and half years at University of Arkansas [Fayetteville, Arkansas], I was in the job market, and a NASA recruiter came to the campus of the University of Arkansas. I interviewed him, I believe; [the recruiter] was male. [He] was a general recruiter from across all of NASA talking about [NASA Lyndon B.] Johnson [Space Center, Houston, Texas]; of course, this Johnson Space Center didn't exist at the time—Kennedy Space Center [Cape Canaveral, Florida,] and the Marshall Space Flight Center [Huntsville, Alabama did]. Later, I received communications from a Mr. Lee [R.] Nichols, who was Warren [J.] North's executive officer, and we had exchanged some information, and he eventually made me a job offer.

I believe, altogether, I had six or eight job offers around the country, mostly from aerospace companies, but one which I found interesting, and I almost went to work for, was Chicago Iron & Bridge [Company]. They sounded very interesting in terms of their program that would let you grow up in the company and the exposure you would get and the mentoring you would get. But after some thought and consideration, I decided to go to work for NASA and come to the Johnson Space Center that was just then beginning to get formed here in Houston.

Wright: What were your first duties and responsibilities here?

Holloway: Well, I came to work in a group that's primary job was to build crew timelines. We call them flight plans, and still call them flight plans today, a schedule of the crew activities and what they're to do, their work-rest cycle and the work they were to perform, and also, the crew procedures. Particularly in the early days, both of those jobs was an integral job, and we were just finishing the Mercury Program when I came.

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