Reach for the Stars... Tecwyn Roberts of Trefnant Bach, Llanddaniel
Many of Ysgol Parc y Bont's former pupils distinguished themselves in varying fields of occupations in their later years and humbly attach much credit to their success to the initial instruction received at the Llanddaniel School. One pupil’s adventures since leaving the school is worthy of account; that of Tecwyn Roberts, who once resided at Trefnant Bach, Llanddaniel.
Tecwyn was one of eight pupils at the school successful in the Scholarship Examination in 1938. He continued his studies at the Beaumaris Grammar School, gaining his Central Welsh Board Certificate after four years. After leaving the Grammar School he began and Engineering Apprenticeship with Saunders Roe, Beaumaris. On his release from the RAF in 1944 he resumed acquaintance with Saunders Roe at their Southampton works, being transferred from there to the Isle of Wight a year later. When in Southampton he attended the University there, studying for the Higher National Certificate in Aeronautical Engineering, which he successfully obtained in 1948. For this achievement Tecwyn was awarded the Institute of Mechanical Engineers Special Award.
In December 1952 Tecwyn and his wife Doris, nee Sprake, from the Isle of White, sailed for Toronto, where he remained for seven years in the employment of A.V. Roe, Canada, Ltd.
In 1959 he was one of a group of twenty five hired by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) [click here for NASA web-site ]. Tecwyn was to become NASA's very first Flight Dynamics Office at the Mercury Control Centre at Cape Kennedy. He played a key role in the design of the Centre and also a subsequent Mission Centre established in Houston, Texas, later re-named the Johnson Space Centre.
Project Mercury put the first Americans into space. Initiated in 1958, with six manned flights from 1961 to 1963, Project Mercury's objectives were specific: to orbit a manned spacecraft around Earth; to investigate man's ability to function in space; and to recover both man and spacecraft safely.
Tecwyn was later stationed at the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland holding the office of Director of Networks, later to become the very first Head of Manned Flight Operations Division at the Goddard Space Flight Centre.
It must have been an exciting occasion for Tecwyn when he met and talked to the late President of the United States John F. Kennedy following John Glenn’s flight in February 1962.
On the 21st May 1962, Tecwyn was appointed Head of Manned Flight Operations Division of the Goddard Space Flight Centre.
On the 17th March 1967 the Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station was opened by Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt, Tecwyn Roberts was one of the official guests.
[click here for larger photograph]
In 1969, Tecwyn was awarded the NASA Exceptional Service Medal; the second highest award in the NASA Awards Program. It is granted for significant achievement or service characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, administrative, space flight, or space-related endeavors which contribute to NASA programs.
In 1969 it was an equally exciting occasion for Tecwyn and his wife when they were invited to dinner in Los Angeles given by President Nixon in honour of the successful lunar landing of Apollo 11. To mark such a unique accomplishment a medallion was struck. Tecwyn’s uncle, Mr R. Buckley Jones, Bangor presented one such medallion to the school together with other souvenir items.
Tecwyn presented to Ysgol Parc y Bont a miscellany of items of considerable value and interest dealing with lunar and space technology. One item was particularly unique among the collection, the Isle of Anglesey and part of Caernarvonshire photographed from space.
The family resided in Maryland; their only child, Michael, (born about 1960), attended The Martin Spalding High School, Severn, Maryland, USA. [click here for Martin Spalding High School web-site ]
The following comments were recorded (on the 12th June 1964) within the NASA Oral History Project as part of an interview with Lt. Col. John H. Glenn (Project Mercury Astronaut and the First American Astronaut): -
“We presented him [President J F Kennedy] with this missile hat and he took that with him. It was presented down at Launch Pad 14, my launch site. He was curious about all the different things at the Cape. We visited the Control Center…He was very interested in this, and particularly he was interested in meeting all the different people who had had a personal part to play in the whole flight - Walt Williams, Chris Kraft, Al Shepard, Carl Huss, and Tec Roberts, some of these people in the Control Center who had played a very personal part in making sure that everything had gone right during the flight.”
The following comments were recorded within the NASA Oral History Project as part of an interview with William B Easter: -
“Kraft's got a group of guys over here headed by Tec [Tecwyn] Roberts, who later went to Goddard Space Flight Center… and became one of my personal friends until he died. He was one of the greatest that ever lived. He was from Wales.”
The following comments were recorded (on 19th March 1998) within the NASA Oral History Project as part of an interview with Eugene F Kranz: -
“We had a marvelous linkage between the Mercury and the Gemini Program; and the Control Center was - One of the English engineers - he was actually a Welshman - who came down from AVRO [A. V. Roe Aircraft Inc., Ontario], Canada, was Tec [Tecwyn] Roberts; and he was our first Flight Dynamics Officer. Tec Roberts was one of the few people who really understood the potential of the computer and its application at Mission Control. So at the midpoint of the Mercury Program, Tec Roberts was replaced by Glynn [S.] Lunney because the technology just in these few months had now allowed us to start remoting data from Bermuda, so we didn’t need a team out in that site anymore. So we could focus the talent that was in the Bermuda team, combine them with the talent that was in the team out in Mercury Control at the Cape, and then send Tec Roberts off to build the next Mission Control Center. Roberts basically had the responsibility to bring the system on line; and it was a marvelous thing.”
The following comments were recorded (on 28th January 1999) within the NASA Oral History Project as part of an interview with Glynn S Lunney (retired NASA engineer and Vice President of United Space Alliance): -
“As a matter of fact, one of my bosses for many years, who has now died, was Tecwyn Roberts. Tec was from Wales, and it was first chance, you know, a lot of us young American kids had to work for somebody and to meet people—all the rest of them, too, from Canada and England, but Tec was marvelous. He had a wonderful knack for getting people to get along. He had a wonderful reasoning ability to take emotion out of it and to bring people back on track and keep them on track. He was so skillful that Chris Kraft had a tremendous amount of confidence in Tec, and Tec was our leader for a number of years, not very many because he ended up—he came down here, but I don't think he stayed very long. The weather was just not good for his health.”
“So for a number of years, a couple of years, Tec was our direct leader and mentor and kind of a—not quite a father, but maybe an uncle figure to a lot of us young fellows in the Flight Dynamics Branch and so on, and he was a tremendous help to Chris in putting together the Control Center concept. Tec was the original flight dynamics officer at the Cape in the Control Center when they operated out of the Mercury Control Center at the Cape. But he was such a gentle and yet demanding kind of a guy—those two words don't go together, but he was that. He was kind of gentle with people and he was kind of demanding of their performance, and because of his talents he evoked a tremendous amount of confidence that people had in him, management had in him, and it was like he was a perfect match for us.”
“We were a random group of young engineers that arrived from all over America and kind of a little brash and a little hasty at times and sometimes a little emotional, and he would kind of gather us along. As a matter of fact, after he died a couple of years ago, I wrote a note to Doris expressing my appreciation for all that Tec had meant to me personally, and I told her how much I and the rest of the men that worked for him had learned from him and how I felt that I used a lot of what I'd learned from him raising our family. So I wanted her to know that there was some of Tec Roberts floating around down here in Houston, Texas, in the next generation of Lunneys. But Tec was one, and I felt blessed because Tec was just a jewel and he got to be our boss, and we had a wonderful time learning from him, and he had a hell of a time dealing with us, I'm sure.”
No one knows what the young boy Tecwyn Roberts of Trefnant Bach, Llanddaniel would have dreamt he would later achieve as he spent his school years (1932-1938) at Ysgol Parc y Bont [click here for school life 1930-1939]. One thing is certain however; he did make his place in history, and just as importantly, he later returned to the school to help inspire another generation of children.
