Ray McManus:  

After graduation from Carroll, I attended Del Mar Jr. College for three years (1962, 1963, and 1964) and received a couple of associate degrees. Leaving Del Mar I enrolled at UT in Austin, spent 3 years there (1965, 1966, and 1967) and received a BS in engineering and almost finished my MS before I decided that I needed a brake from Academia. Also I wanted to get on with my life since I had become engaged to a girl I met while working during the summers at CP&L in Corpus. Her name was Susan Cayce. Susan graduated from Mercedes High School in Mercedes, Texas and worked as a secretary to one of the V.P.¿s at CP&L since graduation. After graduation from UT in 1967, I came to Houston to help NASA put a man on the moon. I went to work at the Manned Spacecraft Center (MSC now JSC) for Link Flight Simulation (a contractor to NASA) which at the time was providing the flight simulators to provided astronaut training for the Apollo program. I was working on a sub contract with Link that worked directly with the astronauts to provide them any specialized training equipment as well as tools and support hardware used in flight. I had come to work a very busy time right after the fire of Apollo 1 and NASA was hot and heavy trying to get their program back on track and schedule because of the delay caused by the fire and redesign effort. It seemed like everyone was working a 60-70 hour work week in those days. I got married to Susan in 1968 and had a daughter (Coleen) in 1972. Coleen was born with Spina Bifida and required many surgeries and special care in her early years. After Apollo, I continued working on the space programs that follow...Expand for more