NASA Chapko, Elaine - May 19, 1999

Interview with Elanie Chapko

 

Interviewer: Karen L. Faul

Date of Interview: May 19, 1999

Location: Faul home, Georgetown, Texas

 

 

 

FAUL: . . .(Introduce) myself, Karen Faul, graduate student with the Southwest Texas State University department of history.  I’m interviewing Elaine Chapko. Is that Correct?

 

CHAPKO: Correct, Chapko.

 

FAUL: Chapko.  At your home in your kitchen. On May 19, 1999. The interview is for a co-operational project between NASA and Southwest Texas State University. You will receive a copy of these transcripts from NASA, not from the university or myself. Do you understand that this interview is being conducted for the SWT and NASA archives only with the intent for research purposes?

 

CHAPKO: Correct

 

FAUL: Okay.  I guess to begin, with your educational background. Did you receive any special training before you went to NASA or?

 

CHAPKO: No, I graduated from high school.  I was a high school graduate.

 

FAUL: And where was, where

CHAPKO: That was in South Milwaukee Wisconsin. I graduated in 1948.

 

FAUL: Wow. So how did you meet your husband?

 

CHAPKO: Well, his sister married my uncle and I met my husband at their wedding.

 

FAUL: Oh that’s so romantic.

 

CHAPKO: And a year later we were married.

 

FAUL: So how then, how did y’all get to Houston?

 

CHAPKO: Well, my husband worked for the government and worked for the Air Force, in Milwaukee. And then went to work for the Air Force in a missile program in Denver Colorado, at Buckley Field. From there he went to the Atomic Energy Commission in Dayton Ohio. And then came down to Houston, the Clear Lake area, to work for NASA as a reliability engineer.

 

FAUL: So, what year did y’all come to Houston?

 

CHAPKO: Let’s see, we came to Houston, I believe it was 1966.

 

FAUL: In the exciting period of time?

 

CHAPKO: Yes.

 

FAUL: I understand you have two children?

 

CHAPKO: Yes. I have two children. I worked for brief period of time after we were married and then I got pregnant. I had stayed home and had two children. My son was a junior in high school at Clear Lake. My daughter was a freshman in college at the University of Texas and I had that empty nest syndrome and decided I wanted to do something with my time so, over the Christmas holidays that year [I] went to work at Foley’s as part time Christmas help and decided that it wasn’t for me so. I had kept up my typing skills over all those years, typing personal correspondence and decided to try out for a clerical position. Thinking perhaps NASA or one of the contractors. Went to one of the contractors, took a typing test. The first thing they did was sit me down at an electric typewriter which I had never operated before. And everything came out gibberish. So, I had a manual typewriter prior to that time. So, she was very very nice, she suggested that I rent an electric typewriter and sharpen my skills. So, which I did. And then went into downtown Houston and took the Civil Service exam thinking I might want to work for NASA. Passed the test and was hired on in 1970 as a temporary clerk/typist, at the Johnson Space Center.

 

FAUL: That’s interesting. So you live in the Clear Lake area?

 

CHAPKO: Yes. Yes. My husband worked there and I decided I wanted to go to work too.

 

FAUL: So what was your position? Which department?

 

CHAPKO: Well, when I started until they found a place for me I worked just for a matter of weeks in the awards office for Glen Brace. Then, I was transferred into the Lunar Experiments Office. Which was in the engineering and development directorate. [I] Worked there as a clerk/typist, got my stenographer rating. Before too much longer I was secretary to the office with, oh I believe there were twelve - fifteen engineers. Then went up from there, that was during the Apollo, ASTP [Apollo-Soyuz Test Project], and Skylab period of time, the various experiments on those programs. Then went to work in the division office, for Dean Grim. I was secretary to the staff there. From there, I went to work in Bill Larson’s office, for Don Blume. Don Blume was the Division Chief and Bill was the Deputy Chief. And, worked there for awhile when I got a call from the Director of the Engineering and Development Directorate saying that they needed -- at that particular point in time, he was working he was director of the Space and Life Sciences Directorate. Well, he was familiar with me and asked me to come up and work for the, let’s see, I believe Dr. Dietlein’s title was Assistant Director for Life Sciences.

 

FAUL: That was Dr. Dietlein?

 

CHAPKO: Yes.

 

FAUL: Could you spell that for me please?

 

CHAPKO: Yes, Let’s see, is it D-i-e  or D-e-i- ? D-i-e-t-l-e-i-n.

FAUL: Okay.

 

CHAPKO: I worked with him then for about a year/ year and a half. And then NASA/JSC was very, well I guess all of NASA was very encouraging of women who had initiative and who worked hard to work, who wanted to work. At that particular point in time, after quite some time, NASA was very diligent in promoting, in the upward mobility program, in fact I think Mr. Larson was one of the big promoters of this program. So, it gave an opportunity for the clerical types to move upward into the junior management positions. So, they had an opening in the security branch for a management assistant. I applied for it and was accepted for the job. The, my primary responsibility at that time, I guess, was to manage the secure communications equipment. Which seemed to be, appeared to be growing. It started out with just a few pieces of equipment and while I was there the account grew to one thousand - fifteen hundred pieces, I believe. And I was responsible for the security of the equipment, ensuring that the people using it were aware of what the security requirements were for the protection of the equipment and procedures to be used and worked with the other NASA centers on the entire equipment program, secure equipment program for the shuttle. For the secure communications for the space shuttle.

 

FAUL: Okay. That’s exciting.

 

CHAPKO: I can honestly say that my entire career there was exciting. Just the experiments office, just knowing the experiments that these men were working on and correspondence that I was typing for them was all these experiments were on the surface of the moon. My whole career was exciting. One of the things I regretted at one point in time was NASA encouraged further education and after I was well into this career here I thought, I regretted that I didn’t go on and get a college degree or just earn some credits for college. But I was so excited just being able to go to work. I was forty years old and I was so excited just having a job and working in this program. That in itself seemed enough so I really enjoyed all twenty years that I worked there. It was always exciting. No matter what I was doing.

 

FAUL: So was it very stressful? I mean working in the experimental lab especially? Was it like a lot of pressure meeting deadlines?

 

CHAPKO: Well, during the Apollo program, well I guess, yes. I think that during the whole, the whole thing, the Apollo program, there were long hours. I know we, I accrued a lot of vacation time because I didn’t take any. It was hard work, but like I said, I really enjoyed it. Always, enjoyed every minute of it.

 

FAUL: So, did your husband also have to work long hours?

 

CHAPKO: Yeah, he did too. He traveled a bit, a good bit. I even had the opportunity to travel to the various NASA centers. And that was very interesting too.

 

FAUL: Was that hard on the families in the community? With all the pressure with NASA?

 

CHAPKO: Oh, I can’t speak for the others. Not that, I really can’t speak for anybody else.

FAUL: In your family? Did you?

 

CHAPKO: No. My children, like I said, my children went off to college. My daughter was a freshman and of course after another year, my son was in college too, so they weren’t at home and was pretty free to spend the time at work.

 

FAUL: Wow, so was Clear Lake like a real close net community? Like the Splash down parties, did everybody go? What was the community like?

 

CHAPKO: Oh yeah, the splashdown parties were the big thing, all up and down NASA Road 1, I think that Nassau Bay Hotel was quite the place for splashdown parties. Everybody, I think at that point in time, they worked hard. They worked very hard, they worked long hours, but they also played hard. And, let’s see, another recreational place was Ellington Air Force Base, the officers club was available to the employees of the Johnson Space Center. And, they had excellent food and music on weekends. There’s a lot of recreation there.

 

FAUL: So how did the kids, what recreation was there? Anything in particular to Clear Lake?

 

CHAPKO: Well, no the high school was the big thing for the high school children. Actually, that area was quite small when we moved there I only think there was no more than three- four- five- thousand people when we first moved there. Of course, it just mushroomed. I mean throughout the space program it just grew.

 

FAUL: Was it strange to see it grow so fast or was it just sort of you didn’t really realize it?

 

CHAPKO: Well, it’s like anything, as it grows you don’t notice it, but then you look back and can say oh my God it mushroomed, but at the time, you know, it just seemed to be, you just took it all in stride. Of course, driving down NASA Road 1 or Bay Area Blvd. at noon hour when everybody was out for lunch or doing their chores, it was, traffic was quite heavy, towards the end.

 

FAUL: What was a normal average day for you? Like in the beginning and then toward the end?

 

CHAPKO: The beginning, well there again, it was long hours. I would go into the office oh maybe, 07:00 in the morning. And there were times, this was when I was working in the experiments office and worked maybe till 5 - 5:30 - 6:00. At the end, when I was working with the secure equipment, as I said there was a lot of travel that was involved meeting with the program office people, and meeting with the custodians of the equipment from the other centers developing procedures and so on. The hours were probably more normal, I don’t think I put in any overtime hours at that time. But I know that during the early days, the Apollo days and Skylab and the ASTP experiment period there were a lot of Saturdays, Saturday work. I worked six days a week.

 

FAUL: So when you went in did you just go to one desk  and sit there all day or were you going between departments or interacting with engineers?

CHAPKO: When I first started there, again as secretary to these ten - fifteen engineers, I did a lot of program office correspondence, answered, we must have had eight telephone lines, which I answered at my desk. Did their travel orders, travel vouchers when they got back, filled out their travel vouchers, picked up their tickets from the travel office and their advances from the travel office. It was just very, answering telephones, typing correspondence, and travel orders. That was really a full time job because they were traveling constantly.

 

FAUL: So you were the only secretary for these gentlemen?

 

CHAPKO: Yes.

 

FAUL: Who did you go to breaks with? Or you didn’t get breaks?

 

CHAPKO: Oh there were times we would go out to lunch occassionally. The whole group would go out to lunch. But, other than that, it was eating at the desk and that sort of thing.

 

FAUL: Oh goodness. So did each department have one secreatry or did it depend on the size of the department?

 

CHAPKO: Yeah, I guess each department did have a secretary. Each office or division or branch, whichever. I was working in what they call an office which was not like a division or a branch or a section. It was the office and there was one secretary for the office. Now, the other organizations that were divisions they would have a branch secretary in each one as well as a division secretary. So, basically, ours was an office and just had the one secretary with all these engineers. Reporting to a project manager, I think that’s, if I recall correctly, that’s what they called the head of that particular office.

 

FAUL: Examples of institutional, technology or programmatic impact?

 

CHAPKO: I think, when I was clerical secretary, I don’t think that there was anything other than the function doing correspondence and travel and that sort of thing, but when I worked in the security division. Okay, programmatical, well I guess, the communications between the ground and shuttle because of the  classified payloads that were on board the shuttle, that was a program in itself. That was so long ago, why do’t we stop for a minute and let me collect my thoughts. I guess I should kind of explain to you what communications security equipment is. The short term for it is ComSec, standing for communications security, ComSec equipment. There were secured, encryted communications between the Shuttle and the ground, both the commands as well as the voice were encrypted as well as ground communications in data between the various centers. Due to the classifies payloads that were on board the shuttle for the Air Force. Each center had what they called a ComSec custodian who was responsible for the safe guarding of the equipment to ensure that it was, security requirements were met in protecting it. Access to the equipment was limited to the people who had the need to know or the need to work with it. National Security Agency, this was their equipment and every three months we were, had to do an inventory. And a representative from the National Security came out, I’d say every six months or every year to conduct an audit to ensure that all the pieces of the inventory were accounted for, that they were being protected properly and that there was nothing missing or whatever. That was very exacting, very exacting work. I had to know where every piece of equipment and key material was at all times. Towards the end of my career, shortly before I retired, the STU 3, which is an acronym for secured telephone unit number three, the third version of it, was actually a telephone much like you would find on your desk which is where these telephones were located. By the time I left, we had about one hundred of these installed in the Center. And the majority of these, I installed with the help of some telecommunications personnel. Installed and instructed them in the security requirements and that in itself was quite an inventory. That added to the other equipment that I was responsible for. The majority of the other air-to-ground equipment and the computer encryption equipment was kept in a facility that was called ComSec Equipment Facitility inside building thirty. And there were engineers and operators that were actually operating the equipment.

 

FAUL: So, you were in charge of the people, making sure that they had the right security clearance?

 

CHAPKO: Correct. Ensure that they had the proper security clearnaces and the proper proceedures in place to protect the equipment.

 

FAUL: So, you sort of had to know how to run the equipment also?

 

CHAPKO: Not the air-to-ground equipment. But the secured telephones units, yes. In fact, I operated many of the early secured telephones. For management in a lot of cases.

 

FAUL: That’s a lot of job responsibilities.

 

CHAPKO: Well, like I say, it was exciting. It really was a lot  of fun. I enjoyed every minute of it. That was so different. You know be a house wife for twenty years, at age forty go to work. You wind up with a career like that. You think at that point in time, your children are gone, your life is… you know you just sit back. But I’m glad I did this.

 

FAUL: That’s just fascinating. Is there really anything that stands out in your mind as being just completely funny or hysterical or just really strange or unique?

 

CHAPKO: I think one of the most memorable, fun things that happened was when I retired. Mr Gilbirth was the head of center operations and of course the security division was under his directorate, he had made arrangements when I retired to plant a tree in my honor. And that tree is planted outside of the cafeteria. And just last weekend over Mother’s Day I was back in Houston, driving through the area and went on to the Center using my retiree badge, and drove past the cafeteria and stopped to take a look at my tree. Which is nine years older right now. I think that was just the perfect ending to just a perfect period of time in my life.

(Reasons for leaving and life after NASA.)

 

CHAPKO: After my husband had retired from NASA along about the time that I started, my career really started taking off, he retired. We had role reversal. He stayed home and maintained the household and I went to work. And after I had my twenty years in, I decided to retire and the two of us moved to Arkansas. Which sounded like a dream, Hot Springs Village, which sounded like a dream community, had five golf courses and we both enjoyed golfing. We liver there for five years and decided it was just a little bit too remote, too isolated. And after living so many years in a big city, we missed the activity and the everything else that goes on in a big city so we wanted to come back to Texas. Although not to the Houston area, so we kinda looked around in the Hill Country for some place to come back to and discovered Georgetown, which is just a lovely community. It’s the county seat, has everything we need in five - six miles and we’re living, we enjoyed this because it was a golf course community where were could both golf. My husband died a little over a year ago and because we live in a zero lot line garden home I am able to stay here by myself. I can maintain it myself. So I’m just filling my time now with playing bridge, I’m learning to play Mah Jongg, learning quilting. I’m doing a little bit of traveling. Going to Europe next week, for the first time. My life is just going on. I have two lovely children. One, my daughter is working for the Univerisy of Massachusetts, in Amherst Massachusetts. My son is Chief Financial Officer for a company in Houston. And [I] have two grandaughters. Each of my children have fifteen/sixteen year old daughters. So, my life is full. I feel as though I’ve had the best of all worlds. The best of the motherhood and homemaker world. The best of the career and then I’ve had eight years of good retirement life. Of course, now I’m going on now as a widow.  Who knows?

 

FAUL: You have a beautiful garden back here.

 

CHAPKO: Thank you. It’s small enough, the house is small enough, the grounds are small enough that it’s… I have someone come in and cut the grass, but other than that I do all the rest of the maintenance myself. Well, my son comes up once every two - three months and takes care of the honey-do list. It’s working out very well, I made a lot of friends here. Right here in the neighborhood. Wonderful support system.