PROGRAMS:

COMPANIES:

• Computer Science Raytheon
• RCA

LOCATIONS:

Patrick Air Force Base (and down range, as required)

POSITIONS:

Electrical Engineer/Command Systems Design

COMMENTS:

Bill (Albert Odell) Watts worked RCA as an Electrical Engineer for almost 40 years.  He was a design engineer for the air force command destruct system, which is used during every launch from Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Center.  He was very dedicated to engineering and told me more than once “I never want to be the boss, I want people to like me.”  Antenna design always interested Bill, and he started young in West Virginia, installing a cable TV network in the coal mining community of Algoma, Wv in the 1940’s so the town could pick up the TV station in Pittsburgh, Pa.  He owned and flew an airplane before he every owned a car and was interested in the space program, so moved to Eau Gallie in the 1950’s where he was employed by RCA.  He worked several times at all the down range tracking stations, as well as Ascencion, and Kwajalein since he was a major player in the design, installation, and checkout of all the command antennas for every space program on the east coast up through a major part of the Shuttle program.  He shared many fond memories of these places, and his many coworkers (Alan Durfee, Ed Jeffries, Hagadone, Grace, among others) with his friends and family.  Although he retired from RCA, within 3 months or so he was back at the same job again, but this time with CSR.  He worked until his health prevented him from continuing on and spent the last years of his life with his family, enjoying grandchildren.  He inspired me to also become an electrical engineer – he basically said I had no other choice with a last name like “Watts.”

Mr. Watts was originally from from Algoma, WV  and lived in Eau Gallie, FL from 1955 until his death in 2005.