POMFLANT Remembered - March 1999 Newsletter

POLARIS MISSILE FACILITY, ATLANTIC
34 Years of Service to the Fleet
29 March 1960 - 05 January 1995

POMFLANT Alumni Newsletter
(Click Here For Printable/Downloadable Version)

March 1999 - Issue 1

April Get-Together: Our next get-together will be held at the Dorchester Boat Club at 3:00 pm on April 17th, 1999. We ask everyone again to bring their favorite dish and the meat, paper goods, drinks and ice will be provided. For those who have not attended yet, the Dorchester Boat Club is located at the Fort Dorchester State Park near Oakbrook in Summerville. The dress is very casual.

If you plan to attend, please send me $5.00 for each person by April 1st. This will cover the cost of the Boat Club plus all the other expenses. Mail to: Mary Adams, 821 N. Palmetto Street, Summerville, SC 29483. Anyone is invited to attend. PLEASE COME!!!!

The following News was provided by our Members:

Bob Hauge would like to hear from his old friends at POMFLANT. He worked in MAPB, ICPB and MRB for Lockheed. Then spent time at Sunnyvale and Kings Bay before retiring December 31, 1988. He now resides in Brooksville, Florida and loves to play golf. His E-Mail address is Winmillbob@aol.com. He particularly mentioned old friends Ed Hausen and Bill Laughlin.

John Mansolf and his wife, Von now live in Merritt Island, Florida. They loved the northwest but wanted to be closer to their new grandson, Julian Martial and their daughter, Joyce, who live in Summerville. John now works at the Naval Ordnance Test Unit (NOTU) Eastern Range, Cape Canaveral. They really enjoy their 4 grandchildren. They travel a lot and really enjoy hearing from their friends from POMFLANT.

Jim and Shirley Stowe lost Jim’s mother, Clara Christine Hand Stowe on October 28, 1997 at age 86, and Shirley’s father, James Frances Downs on November 1, 1997 at age 84. The Stowes, after many years of waiting, are now proud to have two granddaughters. Their daughter, Tammy and son-in-law, Adam Owsley had their first child, Victoria Elise Owsley November 29 1997; and daughter, Kim and husband, Craig Fowler had their first child, Erica Danielle Fowler April 18 1998. Although Kim and Craig live in Columbia, SC, the family gets together often at the Owsley/Stowe side-by-side West Ashley homes and at their Isle of Palms beach house. The grand-daughters have added a spark of life to family activities. The family continues with their commercial and residential real estate business after Jim’s June 1992 retirement from DOE. Jim says his 23 years at POMFLANT were the best and most enjoyable years of his life.

Shelley Pilacky writes that her father was killed in an automobile accident in September 1998 which was a very sad time. She also informs us that Linda Miller has been promoted to a position in Fayetteville, NC where she now lives. Linda’s children still reside in Charleston so she comes back often to visit. Shelley sees Pam Hubbard, Audrey Rasque and Terry Odom frequently.

Steve Curry’s daughter, Elaina, moved in with him last summer and is attending Trident Technical College full time. She also works at the Fitness Center and Game Room Complex at the Navy Nuclear Power School at the Naval Weapons Station. Elaina was previously living in Kittery, Maine, and has attended Southern Maine Technical College in Portland, Maine, and Dodge City Community College in Dodge City, Kansas. She was born in Hawaii. She has traveled around quite a bit but she definitely likes Charleston the best. If all goes well, she might get the opportunity to go to college in France next year.

Steve started a new job last October. He was hired by the City of Charleston for the position of Maintenance Supervisor at Gaillard Municipal Auditorium in downtown Charleston. He has a crew of 8 people and they take care of all problems that may come up. Additionally, he meets with all of the promoters for the shows to take care of any special needs that the show may have. He meets some of the performers and attended a reception for Vanna White recently. If any of his friends are in the area, stop by and say hello.

Mary Ann Tobin wrote recently that she and her husband, Tom, live at Amelia Island, Florida and both are retired. Mary Ann retired early from Kings Bay because of a rare neck disorder called Spasmodic Torticollis. Injections every four months have been somewhat successful to help control the pain. Their daughter, Sheri moved down and married a local boy and they have three little boys. Mary Ann and Tom work in the church, she takes painting classes and Tom plays golf, plays golf and plays golf. She says they are doing great.

Barbara Moyer’s son Lucky has returned to the East Coast after six years at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, Washington. He left Charleston as a result of the 1st go-around RIF at the Charleston Naval Shipyard. He now works at the Triangle Research Facility, Department of Health and Human Resources in the Raleigh/Durham area.

Ellen Robertson writes to ask if we knew that Marion Leamey had died and asked if anyone might know what happened. Ellen’s E-Mail address is rob@net-magic.net, if you can help her with that. She and her husband, Jim, live on Amelia Island. Ellen works at the Trident Refit Facility in conventional weapons and Jim works at SWFLANT on the nuclear side of the house. They see Captain Lavelle and BJ Marlowe occasionally.

Paul and Rachel Fitzgerald are still “on the road”. They still live full time in the motor home, travel when they want to or “stay where-ever and whenever”. Last fall, Paul worked for the sheriff in Osceola County. He now works with a group called TRIID. It is sponsored by the Highlands County Sheriff and three of the local police chiefs and the AARP. Paul and Rachel have their own web site and you can access it at www.members.tripod.com/~paulandrachel/. He has recently put some old pictures from POMFLANT on it. It might be amusing. He hopes to see us at a meeting in the future.

Lyle Holman has a picture of a group of sailors that went to school at Lockheed Missiles and Space Center in 1959/1960. They were trained to open POMFLANT. It is the first group of sailors to arrive in Goose Creek. If you are interested in the picture, he will get it to us. Let me know and I’ll get in touch with him.

Bob Marangelli, a resident of the Forest Hills Subdivision announced on the 22nd of February 1999 his candidacy for the North Charleston City Council Seat for District 10. He would appreciate anyone living in District 10 to consider him when voting in the election on June 10th. Bob can be reached by telephone at: (843) 552-3973 or FAX at: (843) 552-6490, or E-Mail at tmarang492@aol.com.

Fain Griffith sent us a letter recently to explain some of his post POMFLANT experiences. While at POMFLANT, he worked the Operations Planning Department during 1974-75 prior to being transferred to NAVSEASYSCOM, Washington, DC. At NAVSEA, he served in the management activities of the naval shipyards until his retirement in 1987. For the last 11 years, he has been operating a business consul-ting company in north Georgia. Last December, Fain received a calling to redirect his business efforts toward non-profit and religious organizations. Let’s wish him well in this new endeavor.

In October, Fain and his wife, Nadine celebrated their 47th wedding anniversary by spending 10 days in the Hawaiian Islands. They visited Honolulu and the islands of Kauai and Maui where they were able to learn much about native culture and enjoy the beautiful Hawaiian scenes. Fain and Nadine have 3 children and 5 grandchildren.

Paul Zobel worked at Lockheed POMFLANT from June 1975 until May 1993 at which time he transferred to SWFPAC. At POMFLANT, he served as the Liaison Engineer for the modification of MAB-1, in addition to many other varied duties with his last assignment being the longest. He was the last REB engineer to leave REB-2. At SWFPAC, he served as Senior Mechanical Engineer working dockside in the Service Unit for outloads and offloads. While at SWFPAC, he worked closely with former POMFLANT personnel in the production area buildings. He worked at SWFPAC for 4 years before accepting an assignment to Cocoa Beach, Florida with Facility Support Engineering where he is today. He and his wife, Diane plan to return to Charleston upon his retirement in about 2 years. He wants to renew old acquaintances then.

John Veyera worked at POMFLANT from 1963 until 1967. In November 1967, he left POMFLANT and went to Southern Division to work. In April of 1983, he was transferred to Germany. He writes about his 10 years of working and traveling in Europe.

His first job was at the air base in Wiesbaden, Germany as Chief, Engineer Resource Management Division. Then in September 1984, he was transferred to the 26th Support Group in Heidelberg, Germany. The job was exactly the same, but at a higher grade. While in Heidelberg, they lived in the town of St. Leon. In June 1988, he was chosen to be the Deputy Director of Engineering and Housing in Ansbach, Germany. The Ansbach assignment was great. After 18 months, he received a call from his former boss asking him to come to Italy to be his Deputy. He was then a Colonel and the Assistant Chief of Staff-Engineer at SEAF (Southern European Task Force) in Vicenza, Italy with responsibility for facilities in Greece, Turkey and a few other areas. This was the job he held when their children decided it was time to retire and come home.

In Heidelberg and Wiesbaden, Alice had jobs with German florists and really en-joyed her work. She became an expert in the business and the Germans really liked her work. While in Ansbach, she worked as a volunteer for the American Red Cross at the Katterbach Air Base Medical Facility. She did work a bit for pay at the American High School as a lunch room monitor. Alice also enjoyed working and living in Europe.

They traveled extensively while abroad. Between John and Alice, they visited 17 countries while abroad. The countries traveled included: Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Belgium, England, Scotland, San Marino, Austria, Switzerland, Greece, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Yugoslavia, Israel, Denmark, East Germany. They visited Nuremberg many times. It is as beautiful as Ansbach, Heidelberg and Wiesbaden. Nuremberg was the only city of the 4 that suffered war damage. While in Italy, they visited all over northern and central Italy including Venice and the Italian Riviera. Included in their visits were the French Riviera, Cannes and Monaco. They loved Paris and traveled there 4 times. Strasbourg was a favorite mainly because it was only an hour from where they lived in St. Leon. Bastogne, Belgium was visited often because John is very interested in WWII in Europe and he has a cousin buried near there. Scotland was impressive and they loved Italy, but Austria was their No. 1 favorite. John said that this is the country they could have retired to had they had no family ties to the US. Austria is much cleaner than Italy.

It was a wonderful experience but I know their children are glad they are back.

Ron Thomas has just approved the thread colors for the POMFLANT patch. He is hoping that they will arrive in time to be handed out at our get-together on April 17th. The artist rendition of the patch is 4 inches in diameter and is below, for all to see.

Some Sad News About Our Friends - Since our last newsletter, we have lost some from our family:

William (Bill) D. Dixon - died of a heart attack in November 1998. Bill was Head of the Reproduction Department and he handled all of POMFLANT’s urgent and not so urgent reproduction projects and always with a smile.

Clarence R. (Ray) Newlin, Jr. - died of a heart attack in January 1999. Ray worked in the Operations Planning Department as an Equipment Specialist.

Cruise from Miami to the Western Caribbean: Everyone that went on the cruise in October really had a great time. We have the pictures to prove it. Hope we can do it again soon.

SEE YOU ON THE 17TH OF APRIL.

Please keep Ron Thomas and John Maney up to date on your e-mail addresses and or your current snail mail address and telephone number changes.

This page last updated on 12 November 2002.

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