Three Hexagon Heroes
Left to right Bob Landsman, Mike Maguire, Dick Carricato, all during their retirement days. Mike did not have facial hair when he directed hexagon.
Bob Landsman was the original chief engineer on Hexagon. He had daily lunch lectures where he explained to all of us newly on the job what hexagon was all about and concepts of how it was supposed to work. It was extremely complicated and he understood it all. Mike Maguire was our hexagon leader. He was the program director and eventually our general manager. He knew how each hexagon major assembly worked and could have presented all of their functions at design reviews if any of the project engineers was unavailable. He was a terrific and inspirational leader and for most of us the best manager we ever had. Dick Carricato was an electrical engineer and an expert in servomechanisms. Servos were used to control how hexagon worked and when orbital data showed anomalies with the satellite operation, he (and Marty Yellin) were usually called to solve the problem. Dick was instrumental in one major problem that dealt with a broken film problem that could have greatly affected Perkin-Elmer’s fee. He was able to prove that the problem was not PE’s fault. Dick was also one of the few people who knew exactly how hexagon worked in all of its phases.