Goddard Remembers Dr. Trainor

Many past and present employees, friends, colleagues and family gathered Wednesday, November 5th to remember former Goddard employee and space science leader Dr. James H. Trainor.

Among the speakers were, master of ceremonies, George Pieper, former director of space sciences; Frank McDonald, retired NASA Chief Scientist; Ed Stone, former Director of JPL; son Doug Trainor and friends and colleagues, Steve Batelle and "Stass" Stassinopoulos.

Continuously echoed from each speaker was the fact that Jim Trainor was a man who greatly contributed to science, who loved his work and his family. In addition, he was described as a man that naturally adapted to the "technical and the bureaucratic situations within the science environment." Ed Stone continued by saying, Trainor never allowed anything to get in the way of getting the job done. Always responding with "Yes, yes we're working on it." Stone went on to say that Trainor "was an unequal resource and mentor for numerous missions even continuing into his retirement. Always a leader in finding ways to take advantage of the rapidly evolving technology to pack ever more capability into smaller and smaller packages." Coincidentally, Stone and others in attendance had just finished reporting in a news conference on the science results from Voyager 1, a satellite that contains a cosmic ray instrument where Trainor was the chief architect, which was launched 26 years ago.

Trainor, a native of Lancaster, New Hampshire graduated in 1953 from Lancaster Academy where he was the class valedictorian. Trainor received his Ph.D from the University of New Hampshire in 1964, making history by becoming the first graduate of that university to receive a Doctorate in physics. Longtime colleague, Frank McDonald spoke of Trainor's early success with his medical interest as he did research work at Huggins hospital in Wolfeboro, N.H. solving the problem of static discharge from plastic sheets. From 1962 to 1964, Trainor was a U.S. Air Force research fellow where he continued success, developing experiments for the Air Force Discovery series.

Dr. Trainor contributions to many space flight projects, led to 15 successful experiments launched on NASA and U.S. Air Force missions. McDonald continued by reviewing the "great" contributions from Trainor as he served in many significant positions at Goddard that included, head of the Instrumentation Branch, associate chief of the Laboratory for High Energy and director of Space and Earth Sciences. McDonald credited "his ability to maintain knowledge of both engineering and science" as one of his "key strengths" which made him "the best Goddard had to offer" and one that was constantly called upon to work various assignments and serve on reviews at other NASA centers. McDonald also recalled Trainor as being the only scientist to partake in most planetary flybys, including Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.

Dr. Trainor received many awards including the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement in 1974, the NASA Meadal for Exceptional Service in 1987, the Meritorious Rank Presidential Award (Senior Executive Service) in 1987, the Distinguished Executive Presidential Award in 1991 that was awarded at the White House by President George Bush Sr. and the Medal for Distinguished Service in 1994. Trainor retired from Goddard after 30 years of service in 1994 and Frank McDonald concluded by saying, "Trainor was a great asset to Goddard, to NASA and to our lives."

The program concluded with Trainor's son, Doug, sharing a collage of photos of Jim Trainor as a child and the Trainor family to summarize the fact that although Dr. James H.Trainor is gone, it is clear that his contributions to science and the vast information he so willingly shared with others will carry his legacy forever beyond the stars.