Jack Hunter Waite, Sr., age 92, of Huntsville, Alabama passed away on December 24th. He was preceded in death by his wife of over 65 years, Jane Waite; parents, Daniel Webster Waite and Dimple May Waite; sisters, Jean and Dorothy; and brother, Dan. He is survived by his sons, Jack Hunter (Sharon) Waite, Jr. and Steven Green (Cynthia) Waite; grandchildren, Lindsay (Wesley) Jones, Daniel (Meghan) Waite, Michael (Kelley) Waite, and Tabitha (Andrea) Bachofer; and last, but definitely not least in Jack’s eyes, his great grandchildren, David and Zachary Jones, and Jackson Waite.
A man as loved and accomplished as Jack comes with a great story of a fulfilling life…Jack Waite was born October 14, 1928, in Fairfield, Alabama. The dissolution of his father’s bank during the Great Depression moved the family to Clanton, Alabama, where he grew up. Here, at age 12, he first developed his interest in mechanical engineering by rebuilding a model T Ford that he acquired in boxes through a trade for his road worthy bicycle. After graduation from Boaz High School, he attended Snead College in Boaz. During this time period he met and married his lifelong partner, Jane Starkey Green of Hollywood, Alabama. After marriage and a brief stint of helping his brother in the appliance business in Centre, Alabama, he attended the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering in 1951.
Jack came to Huntsville in 1951 as a research design engineer with the Rohm and Haas Company. During this period of time, he began a family with Jane. His first son, Jack Hunter Waite, Jr. was born in June of 1953 followed by his second, Steven Green Waite in November of 1954. He joined the United States Army’s rocket research development team at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama in 1954, serving as associate director of test operations of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency from 1960 to 1962; in parallel, he pursued graduate studies at the University of Alabama, earning a Master of Science degree in Engineering in 1962. He transferred to the newly formed NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center in April 1962, and he was appointed chief of advanced planning on Dr. von Braun’s Executive Staff and later served as manager of the Engine Systems Office. In 1967, he became manager of the Experiment Development and Integration Office in the Center’s Skylab Program Office, a position that he held until the successful completion of the Skylab program. One of his cherished accomplishments was coordinating the Skylab Student experiments program, an early effort by NASA to engage high school students in NASA missions. In 1973, Waite was awarded the NASA Medal for Exceptional Service for his personal contributions to the overall Skylab program.
Following Skylab, Waite served as the manager of the MSFC’s Atmospheric, Magnetospheric, and Plasmas in Space Task Team within the Program Development Directorate. AMPS was a potential payload to fly on the upcoming spacelab missions on the space shuttle. The payloads that were studied for AMPS were made part of the Spacelab 1 mission on space shuttle flights STS 9 and STS 45. The Spacelab 1 mission was the first time that scientists flew as Payload Specialists as part of the flight crew.
Following the AMPS task team, Waite became the technical assistant to the manager of the Space Science Projects Office at Marshall. The portfolio of this office included the HEAO-B payload (later the Einstein Observatory), and after the untimely death of the previous program manager he took over the program manager role of this historic first x ray imaging telescope that ultimately contributed to a Nobel prize for Ricardo Giacconi in 2002. Following the successful flight of the Einstein Observatory, Waite retired from the Marshall Space Flight Center in the early 1980s and joined Teledyne Brown Engineering as the head of their Advanced Space Programs. He later joined Ball Aerospace as their local program development representative in Huntsville, Alabama. In 1984, he and former NASA Spacelab 1 manager, Robert E. Pace, formed the company Pace and Waite, which supported NASA projects with engineering expertise in configuration management, data management, and design review. At Pace and Waite, both Jack and Bob along with their wives Jane and Pat remained part of the NASA family of activities, winning a NASA small business award in 2000. They eventually sold the company to COLSA corporation in 2003.
Jack was a great engineer and manager – lifelong member of Tau Beta Pi and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was a wonderful person to work with and to be around. His thoughtfulness for others and his positive and supportive outlook on life have made him a strong contributor to NASA programs and a great friend to the thousands of people who have joined together to make space exploration a reality for America and the world.
In addition to his professional accolades, he was also deeply involved in his community, spanning the days when Huntsville was a small town in the early 1950s to the technological power that it is today. He served as a PTA president at Whitesburg Elementary School and later Grissom High School. He also worked on the board of Trustees first at Trinity United Methodist Church and later at Lacey’s Spring United Methodist. Last but not least, Jack was a staunch supporter of Alabama sports, no doubt grounded in his father’s baseball career at the University of Alabama in the early 1900’s. Above all Jack was a dear friend to many people in his generation and his sons’ generation as well. He will be missed.
To avoid health risks to all, Jack’s body will be cremated and buried sometime in 2021, when his life can be celebrated by his surviving loved ones with minimal risk of contracting COVID-19, the awful disease that took his life on Christmas Eve.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers, contributions be made in his name to either: 1) the Space Exploration Memorial at the United States Space and Rocket Center (www.marshallretirees.org, this link goes to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center donation page where the contribution can be made and the name to be honored can be inserted) or 2) the University of Alabama scholarship fund in memory of Jack (the Jack Waite Endowed Scholarship, at url give.ua.edu and search for the scholarship name, or the mailing address is The University of Alabama, Office of Advancement Services, Box 870101, Tuscaloosa, AL,35487).
