Kenneth Szalai:
CLASS OF 1960
West Division High SchoolClass of 1960
Milwaukee, WI
Kenneth's Story
Hello dear friends.
UPDATE APRIL 21, 2022
Everything OK and happy on the Western Edge of the Mojave Desert in Palmdale, CA. None of our 3 children have had to move back in with us ... but that's fine if any of you have had to do it.
Ken is still doing aerospace consulting and Mary and Ken are active in Grace Lutheran Church. We grieve for the people in Ukraine and pray they may be protected and rule their own country.
We hope we can have a mini-reunion, low key, this year. Anybody else want to have dinner, drinks, and tall tales in Milwaukee soon?
God bless you all
Ken
UPDATE MARCH 11, 2021
We had our 2nd Pfizer vaccination 2 weeks ago. I hope this is not just a 300 million person placebo experiment.
Mary is the prayer leader for a hundred-strong team of prayer warriors at Grace Lutheran Church she also keeps communications going with the congregation and works on our Worship Committee and on our Day School Committee. She still makes great Hungarian Chicken Paprika with dumplings mmm
Ken is busy as Congregational president (lured out of sabbatical).
- He is doing aerospace technical and management consulting, currently for STRATOLAUNCH. His biggest Challenge is parting with thousands of documents he hasn't looked at in decades.
We were disappointed not to see you all at the last mini-reunion last year.. You are a special group of very nice people.
Mary (Surges) and I are doing fine on the high desert of California, just north of Los Angeles. Mary retired as a master teacher from our Grace Lutheran Church, and is still active in our Lutheran School management. She is an excellent pianist and organist. She taught elementary school for 30 years full time and another 10 years leading choir and part time teaching. She left teaching after 1st child was born until the third one started school.
We celebrated our 56th anniversary in June 2020, at home. Mary is the secret to our 50+ year marriage.
I served as President of our Lutheran Congregation for a total of about 27 years in the past 55 years. We celebrated the 500th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther's nailing of his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg Germany Oct. 31, 1517 with a weekend event in 2...Expand for more
017
History
Ken retired from the NASA Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, CA, after 34 years (the last 8 years as Center Director). The Center is responsible for experimental aircraft, flight research, flight test, and support of the space program. Edwards was a landing site for the space shuttle. I saw about dozen launches at Kennedy Space Center and 30-35 landings. It was a great job and an exciting 34 years. I worked as an aeronautical research engineer ... a lot of fun. I was the Chief Engineer on the F-8 Digital Fly-by-Wire project (first aircraft digital fly-by-wire), and worked on many experimental planes. After 15-16 years in research, I moved into management and was Director of Engineering for 10 years,
After leaving NASA, my European business partner and I started a company in Connecticut which I ran for three years. We brought Russian ejection seat technology to the US (military aircraft escape system). Our company was acquired by a large aerospace company. Since then, I have been consulting in aerospace and non-aerospace business in the US and a bit in Europe. My business partner lives in Spoleto (central Italy,
Our three grown children are all engineers. Son Jeff is a senior systems and software engineer at Northrop Grumman, in Southern California. Daughter Christine is at JPL working on Mars programs. Son Terry is an electrical engineer in the wine and fire country of northern California, specializing in electrical systems for vineyards, schools, and hospitals.
We have been interested in a lot of things. I was a private pilot, did hiking with the kids, swimming, downhill skiing, sailing out of Santa Monica (with Mary and kids), playing guitar,. working on cars, repairing electronics, Mary taught piano (including to 3 kids, but not me!
I look back at the 3 years at West Division fondly. Everyone we knew we counted as a dear friend then, and now. I realize now the profound effects you all had us. Your friendships are a treasure. I hope we never disappointed any of you. We greatly enjoyed every reunion and seeing everyone. We thank and salute the organizers.
Good luck to you, and God Bless You, every one.
Ken Szalai and Mary Szalai
Palmdale, CA
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