We had a great annual meeting; thanks to photographer Paul Schrantz and webmaster Ron Garlow, photos are posted at www.comara.org for those who are interested.
This year's election completes my term as president, and I wanted to express sincere thanks to the COMARA Board and all of you who provided encouragement, ideas, and information for the newsletter. See you at the next reunion!
Ellen Hoff
COMARA held its Annual Meeting on Thursday, November 9, 2006. As reported to the meeting, three Directors (Jack Hannon, Ted O'Brien, Ron Garlow) were elected to the Board for a three-year term by COMARA members. The new Board has elected its officers for the coming year. The new assignments are as follows:
| President | Jack Hannon |
| Vice President | Irv Dostis |
| Treasurer | Tom Kirkendall |
| Secretary | Ted O'Brien |
| Webmaster | Ron Garlow |
| Comsat Legacy | Peter Weiss |
| Membership | Walt McKee |
| Director | Denis Curtin |
| Director | Bob Kinzie |
During the Fall of 2006, COMARA effectively assumed the activities of the Comsat Legacy Foundation (CLF), which then disbanded as an incorporated entity.
Based on a Letter of Cooperation agreed to by both organizations, COMARA has accepted the responsibility for continuing to preserve the Comsat legacy. This includes taking control of various historical documents and artifacts such as photos, plaques, Board minutes, and other documents; providing access to historical documents via the Internet domain; as well as continuing to work with individuals trying to preserve the history of Comsat.
COMARA has created a permanent committee, the Comsat Legacy Committee, which reports directly to the COMARA President and is headed by a COMARA Board member. For 2006 - 2007, the head of this committee is Peter Weiss, with additional support from Walt McKee and Jack Hannon.
During the last few months, the COMARA Legacy committee has reviewed the materials held in storage at the Labs and has provided a link to on-line historical material, such as the Comsat Technical Review (CTR), via the COMARA website. Go to www.comara.org and see the Comsat Legacy links on the right-hand column.
COMARA would like to thank Ed Martin for the tremendous energy and effort he has put into preserving Comsat's history via the Comsat Legacy program, and of course we also recognize and value the efforts of the COMSAT Legacy Board, and the many Legacy volunteers and contributors. We are confident that anyone connected with Comsat appreciates that this unique company allowed the world to communicate "live via satellite".
Pictures from the Annual Meeting have been posted on the web site.
See
http://www.comara.org/annual/annualpix06.htm Paul Schrantz provided these. These pictures are displayed as
thumbnails. Click any of these to load a viewer to display pictures with resolution
of about 800 pixels wide or high. Most of these pictures or of higher resolution,
but have been cropped to make it view in a web browser. If you would like a
copy of the original picture, contact either the photographer or the webmaster.
Two sets of pictures have been received from Ron Johnson's "First Wednesday in December" get-together at Roys Place in Gaithersburg. Paul Schrantz provided one set and these that can be viewed at the top portion of http://www.comara.org/social/firstWednesdayDec06.htm . The lower portion of this page contains pictures from the 2005 get-together. The picture have been on the web site for some time, but the picture viewer is recent.
Bob Krall also provided a large number of pictures of high resolution from the Roys Place get-togther. These will soon be available on the web site. We also have three sets of pictures from the Ancient Mariner luncheon held at Normandie Farm in early December. These will also soon be posted on the web site. Watch the home page for a notice when these are available.
Pier Bargellini sends best wishes to all. Although he will be 93 on February 7, he is in good shape and still does some flying.
Pat Barthelow notes that he is a ham radio operator from the Monterey area, that has been given the opportunity to re-utilize the Jamesburg Station, for a hobby/technology demo project, involving building a Moonbounce station for purposes of communicating to a distant location by bouncing signals off the moon, a rather esoteric activity taken on by technically minded ham radio operators. He is also assisting the current owners of the land/earth station find a new use for the dish that makes business sense. If anyone has information on the focal length and surface accuracy of the Jamesburg Intelsat A model, 30 meter dish, Pat would welcome help. His ham radio call: AA6EG
John Berres' father, Ray Berres, is now listed in Wikipedia - he is now the oldest former National League baseball player, at age 99. He spent 11 years in the National League as a catcher, and then over 20 years as the pitching coach for the Chicago White Sox! John himself is VP and Deputy Director, Intellectual Property for Alcatel. John, when not working his way through mergers etc., races in vintage auto racing events using the same car he raced (instead of studying) when he was in law school at GWU 35 years ago. Well, he races in a couple of other cars as well.
Jeff Binckes and wife Betsy spent a week in Seattle with old friends and then took a seven-day cruise o n MS Oosterdam on the inside passage, visiting Sitka, Juneau and the massive Hubbard Glacier.
Bob Cool has been busy the last year building a new house in Southport, NC. He and Holly have been in North Carolina since spring of 2002.
Nelly Brooks says "the $10.00 check is in the mail; -would love to be there on Nov. 9 but as previously reported that is out!!! Being legally blind is taxing but with my husband we 'get through the days', and our grandsons law office is doing just fine, so much so that we hardly see them!!! Ha!
Stephen Day You might be interested to look at www.justsap.us. JUSTSAP was started by Bert Edelson in 1990 to encourage cooperation in Space technology between the US and Japan and is still going strong - and am very much involved. Am also shifting out of management consulting to focus on a couple of boards, particularly an HR software company called ICIMS, that is an ASP selling an applicant tracking system (ATS) to mid size corporations. Stephen had an art exhibit in November in Georgetown.
Dan DiFonzo reports that his son, Dan Jr., age 43, recently ran in two marathons: The Steamtown Marathon in Pennsylvania on October 8th, where his time was 2:53:53, finishing 40th overall and first in his age group out of 1,672 finishers. On October 28 he ran the Marine Corps Marathon in 3:00:00, finishing 125th overall out of 31,422 registered and 11th in his age group.
Saj Durrani is serving as President of the DC Council of Engineering and Architectural Societies (DCCEAS) for 2006-07. The local Chapters of about 35 Societies are affiliated with the Council. We organize special events during Engineers Week, hold Student Paper Competitions at undergraduate and graduate levels, recognize distinguished engineers and architects at our annual banquet, and assist local schools to participate in the Future Cities Competition. He is also President of the Aspen Hill Chapter of the National Active and Retired Federal Employees Association (NARFE). (He worked for NASA after leaving Comsat Labs in the 1970s.) As part of the national body, our main objective is to ensure that Federal employees retain their pension and health benefits after retirement. He also serves as a Program Evaluator for Electrical Engineering at various universities, and gives tutorials on satellite communications to IEEE groups.
Ed Faine started writing when he turned 50, and has published a number of books including the "Little Ned" series aimed at children between age 4 and 8, as well as creating the Fodderwing literary magazine. He has taught children to play the hand trumpet, tie knots and teach their cat to roll over, and is working to increase his collection of frog jokes from 650 to 800.
Fredessa Hamilton has relocated to Raleigh, North Carolina to begin studying for her Ph.D in Communication, Rhetoric and Digital Media - and when unable to attend D.C. events, still likes to stay in touch with COMARA and receive the newsletter.
George Huson's wife Pat was relaxing at their Ocean City beach house when a series of calls led her to agree to serve as the interim executive Vice President of the Montgomery Village Foundation.
David Nye reports that he "finally admitted" to being in a state of retirement in 2004, having put in almost 46 years in Human Resources work. After Comsat he partnered with a west coast associate to form an executive search firm, the broadened that business into career counseling with contracts for career change and retirement programming with a major and rather unique Federal agency. He moved to Arizona in 2005, and enjoys it well.
If you worked for COMSAT at least ten years and retired at or after age 55 and elected to continue medical coverage, then you also have some life insurance coverage. For most this declines over several years after retirement to $10,000, based on salary; correspondingly, some may have a final coverage figure somewhat lower than this. Make sure your heirs know about this. You will find your confirmation of life insurance and the amount on your "Annual Enrollment Confirmation Statement." If you think you should have this coverage but it isn't shown on that statement, call the Service Center, which can also provide the forms if you want to change beneficiaries. And if for any reason you need to talk to the insurance carrier, it is Prudential (877) 889-2070).
There is a table at page 102 of the 155-page booklet "Lockheed Martin Corporation Group Insurance for Retired Employees," effective Jan. 1, 2007, that would infer that if the former COMSAT employee/retiree predeceases his or her spouse, that spouse will lose medical coverage from Lockheed Martin at age 65. But two different Lockheed Martin Service Center agents have told me today that in a document entitled "Medical Coverage Restrictions" (which I don't have and they won't send me), it is clearly stated that if the Lockheed retiree (including all former COMSAT retirees) dies after 2003, their spouse can maintain medical or medical and dental coverage with Lockheed Martin for life, as long as they continue to pay the premiums. And none of you who are the Lockheed retiree will fail to meet that condition (this is judicious humor, right?).
As you no doubt know, the Lockheed Martin medical plans have more favorable prescription drug coverage than Medicare Plan D, for example. And an ex-COMSAT HR person now in Lockheed's HR Department told me today that no spouse of a deceased COMSAT retiree has been denied medical coverage by Lockheed. So rest easy on this one. I'd like to have the document for the COMARA files, though. Does anyone have it?
Jack Hannon
Geri Robinson, long time COMSAT/LMGT employee
Howard Haines, who worked at Comsat Labs in the Facilities Department. Howard died at his home on Saturday November 11. He was 78
We attempt to maintain a list of all members who have passed away. The link to this list is on the members section. You do have to sign in before the list is displayed. If you know of someone who is not on this list, please send the information to webmaster@comara.org so we can update the list.
When we know that a member is deceased, and there is a surviving spouse, the spouse becomes the COMARA member. We continue to send emails to the email list (if any) listed in the account.
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