On June 14, 2023 William Allen Myers died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 86.
Al was born in McMinnville. At an early age, he had an interest in flying and in space. He learned how to fly small aircraft in his teens. He went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and earned a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering in 1959.
Soon after graduating college, Al joined the United States Air Force. Although he loved to fly and yearned to become a fighter pilot, Al wore glasses so the Air Force used his higher education in engineering and assigned him to plan and construct bases. He rose to the rank of Captain and led the innovation of all new space programs for the Air Force Space Division in El Segundo, Calif. He was the project lead for space navigation, responsible for innovating most launch concepts for navigation satellites in the late 1960’s and conceiving the first equations later used in the Global Position Satellites using an atomic clock. This led to the innovation of all new space programs for the Air Force Space Division. He received the Air Force Accommodation Medal for one of its early geosynchronous multiple satellite launches in 1967.
With the help of the Air Force, Al went back to the University of Tennessee to study astronautics. On July 14, 1962, Al married Kay from Miss. Al graduated from the University of Tennessee with a Master in Science degree in astronautics in June 1964. Still enlisted in the Air Force, Al, Kay, and their baby daughter drove to Los Angeles for what was only supposed to be a 2- to 3-month assignment with the Air Force, according to Kay.
After being discharged from the Air Force in 1969, Al received a job offer he could not refuse. Rockwell International hired him as a program manager for the P72-2 satellite for the United States Air Force. Al worked on the Space Shuttle Orbiter program beginning with the first test space shuttle, Enterprise, which made its maiden flight in 1977 in the Mojave Desert. It was an unpowered glider that flew “piggyback” on a modified Boeing 747.
Al was one of the first scientists to develop the Navstar or Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite constellation originally used strictly by the military. Today we all use this GPS system to guide where we are going on our phones. At Rockwell, Al met J. Robert Beyster, founder of Science Applications Incorporated (SAI) which later became Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), one of today’s largest defense contractors, and awarded SAI one of its first contracts.
In addition to the Air Force satellite, Al managed the building of two space surveillance sensors and one communications experiment. He led the winning proposal effort and led the design for the first sixteen Global Positioning Satellites before becoming a Director of Space programs for Rockwell.
In 1982, Dr. Beyster hired Al to work for SAIC. Al and his family made the move 100 miles south to San Diego, California. At SAI, Al managed the origination and space flight of many very advanced classified surveillance type sensors. These include the STARLAB, VUE, POAM, NEMO, AIRRS, and CHIRP programs. At one time, Al’s group had five operating systems in space. His CHIRP team was the winner of the prestigious 2012 Aviation Week Program Excellence Award for Subsystem Level Research and Development.
If his life wasn’t interesting enough, it was here where it became more interesting. With the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, Al was contracted by a government agency to learn more about the Soviet nuclear program. He became a quasi-businessman in the U.S. to act as a sales representative for the Russian Soyuz launch rocket. He flew back and forth from the U.S. and Russia throughout the 1990s. He always made it back!
A true patriot, Al loved his country and its constitution. He spent his entire life defending this country from its adversaries. Often a quiet man, he led through example with his hard work, energy, creativity, dry sense of humor, and kindness.
Al was preceded in death by his wife, Kay; his father, and his mother, a sister and a brother. He is survived by a brother, his three children, four grandchildren, two great grandchildren and many much-loved nieces and nephews, in-laws and friends.
A graveside memorial service will be held at Miramar National Cemetery on Friday July 14, at 10:15 a.m. at 5795 Nobel Drive, San Diego.
Southern Standard
(McMinnville, Tenn.) July 9, 2023
