Gary Allgire:
CLASS OF 1964
McCluer High SchoolClass of 1964
Florissant, MO
Gary's Story
First and foremost I married my high school sweet heart who I met in our junior year. Susan did not attend McCluer but attended Aquinas High School. Upon her graduation from college with a business degree we were married in Jul of 1968. Susan till this day says she cried all the way to Florida. She was so sure that I would take a job with MacDonald Aircraft Corporation like the rest of my family. Today, Susan is so happy that we did move to Florida and has never regretted my choice to work for NASA.
We have two grown children, Jennifer and Dwayne of which both live on the west coast of Florida. Dwayne is a Civil engineer working for a company that does highway/roadway design work for the Florida Department of Transportation in the Tampa area. Jennifer has a degree in business, however she has decided to be a stay at home mother with her two teenage daughters. Dwayne and his wife do not have any children. Both of our kid’s family are very active in riding/racing off road bicycles throughout Florida and the Southeast.
After graduating from McCluer in ’64 I attended Parks College of St. Louis University in Sept ’64. In Dec. ’67 I graduated with an Aircraft Maintenance Engineering Degree along with my license as a certified Airframe and Power plant mechanic. My A & P license is still valid today, however I have never used it. During my last semester at Parks, NASA came to our campus to interview for positions at Kennedy Space Center. I was fortunate to be one of the two graduating seniors that was selected to work for NASA. My 33 year career with NASA started in Jan ’68 with taking a position as an Apollo Spacecraft structures/mechanical systems engineer. I was assigned to a lead engineer as his backup and together we worked on Apollo missions 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, and 17 as well as the three Skylab missions. For the Apollo Soyuz Test Project (ASTP) I was the lead engineer. In addition I was the lead expert in spacecraft hatch mechanisms and docking systems. I was also the NASA Jammed Hatch Engineer for the three Skylab missions. I flew with the Ari Force Launch and Rescue Team to assists in opening the spacecraft side hatch if there should be an abort and the spacecraft landed on the beach or KSC property.
After the completion of the Apollo program, I was assigned as the lead Shuttle structures/mechanical systems and payload handling engineer. I was responsible for developing Shuttle airframe procedures and repairs; the development of the handling and installation procedures for the Remote Mutilator System (RMS or known as the Arm), the payload bay radiators, the Shuttle payload bay along with payload attach points/mechanisms, and procedures for install...Expand for more
ing/removing payloads horizontally and vertically. In 1983 I was selected to be a Shuttle/Payloads Project Engineer with the responsibly for leading a team of NASA and contractor engineers in defining the Department of Defense (DoD) payload/shuttle integration requirements and the development of all testing and troubleshooting procedures for shuttle/DoD payloads.
In 1988 I was selected as one of the three Shuttle DoD Launch Site Support Managers. This position was the NASA single point of contact for the Department of Defense when they selected to fly their missions on the shuttle. We had the responsibly for leading a team of NASA and contractor personnel in defining the DoD payload KSC facility/security requirements as well as DoD payload integration and testing requirements.
In 1988 I took a position as the Payload Operations Branch Manager with responsibly of managing a group of shuttle/payload operation engineers. These engineers were responsible for scheduling and monitoring all payload operations at Pads 39A and 39B as well as all the Shuttle OPFs.
From 1994 until my retirement from NASA in Jan. 2001 I was a Senior System Assessment Engineer in the Shuttle Independent Assessment Office. This office worked for and directly advised the NASA Director of Safety and Quality Assurance on all engineering issues for the Shuttle, Space Station and ELV operations at KSC.
From 2002 to 2004 I worked for the Tybrin Corporation at KSC as a Senior System Assessment Consultant to the NASA Director of Safety and Quality Assurance. All NASA consulting contracts were dropped after the Columbia accident thus ending my engineering career. However its 2020 and I have since volunteered to join the NASA KSC Docent program. This is a program that is made up of NASA and contractor personnel who worked on the Apollo/Shuttle programs and donate our time to be in one of the two visitor sites at Kennedy. The Docents try and answer visitor’s questions and to relate to them about our experiences working on the Apollo Moon Program and/or the Space Shuttle. You will find Docents at the Apollo/Saturn Visitor display or at the Atlantis shuttle display in the main KSC Visitor Complex. After this Coronavirus issue is over I hope to be able to see you at one of the displays.
From 1971 to 1976 I joined the NAVAL Reserves and was assigned to the NAVAL AIR STATION, Jacksonville. I was an A4/A7 plane captain for those years.
Due to my love of riding/racing dirt motorcycles, from 1984 to 1994 Susan and I became co-owners with the original owner of a Suzuki/Yamaha Motorcycle/Water Vehicle dealership. Susan did the book keeping, title work and payroll while I did sales on the weekends.
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