Meet: Curt Laughlin

What are your current job responsibilities (in 1995)
The basic responsibilities are, as Project Manager, to oversee all aspects of the Project and to prioritize resources, and, as Branch Chief, to provide and supervise the Project management staff as well as the support facilities required.

How did you get to this point in your career (what education and previous jobs did you have)?
I have an MS in physics and an MBA. After earning the MS, I continued to work at the University of Iowa, managing small satellite projects and building instruments for them. Later, I was at Rice University for five years, managing the laboratory facilities for the (then) newly formed Department of Space Science and participating in various of the research projects. After that, I was Superintendent of The University of Texas McDonald Observatory for twenty years, leaving that position in 1988 to come to Ames Research Center as a Mission Manager for the KAO.

What was your personal motivation for following this path?
My motivation has been to have an interesting, fun and, hopefully, useful job in support of experimental physical science.

What are your goals during the next year?
My goal for the coming year is to help the KAO Project to be as productive as possible.

What other personal tidbits would you like to share (hobbies, family, etc)?
My hobbies are reading, collecting slide rules and miscellaneous other (small) instruments of an interesting (to me) nature, and fixing things -- toys, cars, appliances, ....