Richard L. Holt
Richard (Dick) Holt was born and raised in Panama. He maintains dual citizenship in both the U.S. and Panama. He is fluent in both Spanish and English. His father was a Pilot on the Panama Canal affording Dick an opportunity to grow up on this waterway and transit the Canal innumerable times on every type ship with his father. His father was a Navy veteran who took a position on the Panama Canal in 1923 to operate all kinds of water craft, from tugboats to ships. He eventually was named a Pilot on this strategic waterway.
Dick is considered an expert on the Panama Canal.
His grandmother’s family settled in Panama in the 1500’s. They came to Panama from Galicia, Spain. His maternal grandfather came to work in Panama from Germany in 1906, and was an Electrical Engineer, and one of the original engineers that built the Panama Canal. He met and married Dick’s grandmother in Panama.
Dick has traveled extensively and lived and worked in many parts of Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe.
Dick is a Physicist, a graduate of Wheaton College in Illinois. He has more than 40 years experience in Aeronautics, Astronautics and Oceanography.
Dick participated in varsity football while at Wheaton. He was the team’s co-captain in his senior year. He was also chosen as the most valuable player on the team that year. He was selected as an all-conference tackle at both the offensive and defensive positions, and furthermore, was selected to the Little All-American team also in both these positions after his senior year. He was selected to play in the first East-West All American Bowl in Nashville, TN at Christmas in 1955, and was selected on the all-bowl team at the tackle position.
Dick participated in the Army ROTC program at Wheaton College. In his senior year he was the Brigade Commander of the 600 man ROTC Brigade at Wheaton. He graduated as a Distinguished Military Graduate and accepted a Regular Army commission at graduation.
Dick attended the Army Signal School at Fort Monmouth, N.J, the Army Missile School at Fort Bliss, TX, the Jungle Warfare School in Panama, the Army Airborne School at Fort Campbell, KY and the Army Ranger School at Fort Benning, GA.
He served in the Army Missile Command commanding a Nike Missile Battery of some 250 officers and enlisted personnel. During this same period, Dick was also an Army ranger, paratrooper and served three tours in Guatemala during that country’s terrible civil war. He was a Special Operations Team Leader in Guatemala of a 15 man special operations unit. He lived among the Maya Indians in the mountains of Guatemala. His principle task was to teach the Maya how to defend themselves from the slaughter that was being conducted by Guatemalan Army troops. His language skills were invaluable in that assignment.
When his military obligation was completed, he accepted a position as a Physicist/Electronic Engineer at the Naval Missile Center, Point Mugu, California. His first duty was as the Project Engineer for the countermeasures test and evaluation of the Eagle air-to-air missile.
While he was in this position, the Department of the Navy made a decision to begin a brand new program, at Point Mugu, the study of the Dolphin as a possible help to the Navy in undersea Naval Warfare. Because of his SCUBA diving experience and expertise, Dick was chosen as one of six engineers/divers to begin this program.
He was a member of the original Special Warfare study group for the Navy in the study of Dolphins and their application to Naval Warfare. Prior to taking on this new assignment, Dick was sent to Coronado Island in San Diego to go through the Navy SEAL Diver Certification course offered through the Navy UDT/SEAL Special Warfare Training Program on Coronado. This pioneering effort by the Navy to employ dolphins in warfare situations was the beginning of the study of dolphin by either military or civilian organizations. These same dolphins were used in both wars in Iraq.
The Dolphin Program was halted in late 1962 because of the death of all the animals in the Program, so Dick was offered a chance to return to school at Navy expense and get his doctorate in Physical Oceanography at Texas A&M. On the way to school, he passed through Houston where a new government program, NASA was just establishing a new Manned Space Program. He was introduced by his former boss at Point Mugu to the Flight Operations Director, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr. who was to lead this country in flying men in space. He was enthralled with this new venture, so in 1962, he became a member of NASA. Dick was one of the original team that established the Manned Space Center in Houston, Texas.
Throughout the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Moon Programs, Dick managed the Mission Control Center and the Manned Space Flight Tracking Network and sat at the console in the Mission Control Room just to the right of the Flight Director.
Following the successful Apollo moon program, Dick spent two years at Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Labs as the Asst Systems Division Head responsible for rebuilding
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Mission Control Room just to the right of the Flight Director.
Following the successful Apollo moon program, Dick spent two years at Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Labs as the Asst Systems Division Head responsible for rebuilding their control center preparing that Center for the control of spacecraft for the unmanned space programs of the future into outer space.
Dick was asked by the White House in the early 70’s to transfer to the National Cancer Institute as an Assistant to the Director. He was chosen for this position because of his experience and expertise in running major government programs. His role was to assist in the planning for a major thrust by the United States and the biomedical world in a fight against that dreaded disease. He traveled extensively helping develop and fund major cancer centers in this country and abroad and developed the technical systems necessary to develop information flow between researchers and treatment specialists all over the world.
When the National Cancer Plan was completed, he left this challenging position after four years and returned to his familiar role as a Program Director in the Aerospace business sector. He retired from TRW Space Systems in the year 2000.
His love of the oceans led him to become a certified SCUBA diving instructor and he has used that skill for almost 50 years opening up the wonders of the ocean to thousands of diving students. Dick was one of the founders of NAUI, the Nat’l Assoc of Underwater Instructors. He was the principle instructor at NASA Houston for all the new astronauts learning how to cope with and work in weightlessness in the massive tank at Ellington AFB near Houston that was used to train the astronauts.
He is a rated Commercial Airplane Pilot with instrument and multi-engine ratings, with more than 4,000 hours as Pilot-in-Command.
Extracurricular activities have included breeding and showing quarter horses. He has had a ranch in Southwestern Idaho for many years where he not only raised his horses, but was also in the cattle business. Later on, after some years of successful farming and ranching, he turned his attention to land development and has successfully developed individual homes and subdivisions on his property. He is still involved in that business to this day.
Since his retirement, Dick has been pursuing his avocation of story telling about cultures and peoples, especially those of Latin America where he has lived much of his life. He also has exciting lectures on Oceanography, the Space Program and on Aviation based on his personal experiences. This is his seventh year lecturing on cruise ships. He served on Regent Seven Seas ships for five years. He is now under contract to Holland America as a guest speaker on their beautiful fleet of ships. Dick and his wife spent more than 800 days aboard ship in their years of lecturing on the cruise ships of four major cruise lines.
During these retirement years he has also found time to serve as a member of the Sanctuary Advisory Council for the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary headquartered in Santa Barbara, California, appointed to this position by the Administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Dick is married to the former Cheryl Albers, a retired college Professor. They have one daughter, an elementary school teacher, and two beautiful grandsons, 11 and 12, who live near their home base in Ventura, California. Their son-in-law is an active duty Navy Chief who is involved in the maintenance of a fleet of C-130 aircraft stationed at Point Mugu, California that are used world-wide to resupply the fleet and bases throughout the world.
Dick and his wife are both accomplished musicians, Dick on the Clarinet and Sax and Cheryl on the French Horn. They have been members of the Ventura County Concert Band for a number of years. Their grandsons are taking up these same instruments now that they are in Middle School.
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| Navy's Eagle Air-to-Air Missile |
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When his military obligation was completed, he accepted a position as a Physicist/Electronic Engineer in the Electronic Warfare Division at the Naval Missile Center, Point Mugu, California. His first duty was as the Project Engineer for the countermeasures test and evaluation of the Eagle air-to-air missile. This was an exciting assignment for Dick requiring him to fly in different types of Navy aircraft almost daily. He was required to study the weapons systems employed by the Russians and know them well enough to plan for the compromise of these systems by our own. The Eagle system had a large missile to be launched from a Navy aircraft and be guided by a radar on board that aircraft. If the enemy turned on a jamming device, the missile was to switch to an on-board tracking radar and complete the flight to the target.
Dick's assignment included the evaluation of both the missile and its systems to those system elements on the launch aircraft.
The Eagle system failed to meet the Navy's requirements and Dick was instrumental in this finding. He received commendations for his work as well as a large cash award for a classified technique that determined the launch window for missiles. He was promoted twice during his time in this organization.
During his second year in this position, the Department of the Navy made a decision to begin a brand new program, The Navy Dolphin Program, at Point Mugu, the Study of Dolphins as a possible help to the Navy in under-sea Naval Warfare. They wanted the dolphin's SONAR system studied, how the dolphin was able to stay under water for so long even though they were a mammal and had to return to the surface for air. They wanted the communications system explored to see if there was any way this could be used as a countermeasure device between ships and subs. Many other scientific facts were to be sought in this study.
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| A3D Fighter Bombers assigned to the Electronic Warfare DIvision at Point Mugu were to be used as the test-bed aircraft for the launching of the Eagle air-to-air missile. Dick had many hours flying in these aircraft. |
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Navy Dolphin Program, Naval Air Station, Point Mugu, CA
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| Navy SEALS being trained to handle the dolphins, and to let the dolphins get used to them. |
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Over a period of some two years prior to this time, Dick had hundreds of Navy personnel in his diving classes at Point Mugu and Port Hueneme, another Naval base nearby. He was well known to management of both locations for his expertise in the water with SCUBA. Because of his SCUBA diving experience, Dick was chosen as one of six Navy scientists/divers to begin this program. So Dick became a member of the original Special Warfare study group for the Navy in the study of Dolphins and their application to Naval Warfare. No one in the United States was studying dolphins, there were no "dolphin shows" as we know them now, and no one had knowledge of the innards of the dolphin. There were no books about dolphins either. The only other people that were working with dolphins were the Russians.
Prior to taking on this new assignment, Dick and three of his fellow Navy divers chosen for this program were sent to Coronado Island in San Diego to go through a Diver Certification course that was offered by the Navy UDT/SEAL Special Warfare training facility. Included in Dick's class were about a dozen Army Special Forces officers who were chosen to begin a diving training program for Army Special Ops people to qualify them in the water. This class, unlike the usual class going through the SEAL training was to be a non-numbered and un-documented class since they were not going to be members of a Navy SEAL team but going on to other assignments. They were required to go through all the same training as any other SEAL candidate.
When deployed in combat situations later on, the dolphins were to be handled by Navy SEALS, and Dick and his fellow dolphin scientists were required by the Commanding Admirals at Point Mugu and China Lake Naval Air Facility which had the responsibility for the dolphin program to go through the SEAL training to be fully aware of the SEAL program and how its people operated and prepared for combat. They felt that this realistic training was necesary before the dolphin training was to begin. Navy SEALS that were to become dolphin handlers in combat situations in the future were to be trained by this cadre of researchers, and these trainers had to be qualified SEALS in order to carry out this mission. The four from Pt. Mugu successfully passed the SEAL training program at Coronado and were authorized to wear the SEAL badge, and their records reflected this qualification.
After all these years since the onset of the program, Navy SEALS are today being transported all over the world with their dolphins to perform special missions. The SEALS are trained at the dolphin facility at the SPAWAR (Space and Naval Warfare Systems) command in San Diego where the dolphins are housed. The SEALS and their dolphins are transported to their assignments in Navy C-130 aircraft based right at Point Mugu where Dick was formerly employed in the Dolphin Program. An additional unlikely circumstance is that Dick's son-in-law is a Navy Chief and is responsible for the maintenance of the squadron of C-130 aircraft that do the hauling of the Navy SEALS and their dolphins to their assignments.
This dolphin pioneering effort was the beginning of the study of dolphin by either military or civilian organizations, so every move was carefully documented for future use. The program operated very successfully at Point Mugu for two years and then ran into serious environmental difficulties, in that the ocean water that was used for the training on the beachfront at Point Mugu was severely polluted. Almost all of the dolphins brought to Point Mugu for the program perished, and the program came to a halt after two years. Navy planners were not sure of the future of the dolphin research and application to special warfare.
And by the way, the dolphin program was restarted after a year or so of decision making by Navy Brass. It was moved to Hawaii, and after a few years took up its permanent home at the Navy's Space and Special Warfare Center in San Diego. It now houses all the dolphins, their trainers, and the Navy SEALS that are being trained to take these animals out on missions all over the world.
ome base in Ventura, California.
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NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, TX
Through a series of unique circumstances at Point Mugu that ensued in the following months, DIck was offered an opportunity to go to graduate school at Texas A&M and pursue the goal of getting his doctorate in Physical Oceanography at Navy expense, hopefully to return to his dolphin research assignment at Pt. Mugu.
On his way to school in Bryan, Texas, he stopped in Houston to meet with his former Navy boss at Point Mugu, who introduced Dick into the world of the "man in space" program. Because of his skills learned in the Army of ground tracking systems and then at Point Mugu in avionics and air to air missiles and all the instrumentation that was used for the testing, he was offered a position of some importance in this program in Houston.
Network Operations Manager, NASA Manned Spacecraft Center. Dick was named the first civilian Network Controller for the entire ground tracking system including aircraft and ships that was spread world-wide for the space missions. So late in 1962, instead of going to school, he became a member of NASA, one of the original team that established the Manned Space Center in Houston, Texas.
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| Mercury spacecraft atop an Air Force modified Atlas Intercontinental Ballistic Missile blasting off at Cape Canaveral |
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NASA Manned Spacecraft Center, Houston, Texas. Throughout the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Moon Programs, Dick managed the Mission Control Center and the World-wide Manned Space Flight Tracking Network and sat at the console in the Mission Control Room just to the right of the Flight Director.
The world-wide tracking system of NASA's consisted of 17+ tracking stations situated all over the world, and in addition, there were tracking ships deployed to different positions where land based stations were not located. A fleet of tracking and data relay aircraft were also deployed for each mission. Dick's job was to manange the operational readiness of this extensive tracking network and to report to the Flight Director the status of each.
Prior to each mission, Dick was required to become intimately involved in all the intricacies of each data link so as to be sure that the ground stations around the world would be compatible with those data transmission requirements. He also had to ensure that the communications systems were fully operational so as to transmit the data back to the Mission Control Center from the network stations.
Flight Controllers/Astronauts from Houston were sent to the tracking stations to do the control functions from those stations when the spacecraft passed over them. In order to do this, the operating consoles and all the data collection and display systems had to be employed at those stations to meet this requirement. Dick was responsible for seeing that the requirements sent to the Goddard Space Flight Center and to the Department of Defense, the owners of the tracking stations had been fully met and implemented at each of the tracking stations.
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NASA/Cal Tech Jet Propulsion Labs, Pasadena, CA
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Following Apollo, Dick spent two years at NASA/Cal Tech’s Jet Propulsion Labs rebuilding their control center and massive computing facility preparing that Center for the control of spacecraft for the unmanned space programs of the future. More to come in this section as well as those that follow......
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Dick went on from the Jet Propulsion Labs after two years and took a position with TRW Space Systems Division in Redondo Beach, California. He was involved in developing large command and control facilities for the military which took advantage of all his past experience in both the military and with NASA/JPL. He was selected as the Program Director for TRW's effort to develop and manage the largest military command and control system ever attempted, the Worldwide Military Command and Control System, described as follows on Wilkipedia on the Internet:
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Dick was asked by the White House in the early 70’s to transfer to the National Cancer Institute as an Assistant to the Director. He was chosen for this position because of his experience and expertise in running major government programs. His role was to assist in the planning for a major thrust by the biomedical world in a fight against that dreaded disease. He traveled extensively helping develop major cancer centers in this country and abroad and developing the technical systems necessary to develop information flow between researchers and treatment specialists all over the world.
He left this challenging position after four years and returned to his familiar role as a Program Director in the Aerospace business sector. He retired from TRW Space Systems in the year 2000.
Please proceed to "Cruising the Seas"
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