The loss this week of Dr. James Chipman Fletcher, former University of Utah president and the only person to serve two separate terms as administrator of NASA, is a deeply felt one for Utah and the nation.
Felled by cancer at the age of 72, Fletcher was a pioneer and a giant in many fields, dedicated to excellence as well as a trusted and loved associate to numerous people of great diversity.Although he was a rocket scientist and academic whose coveted education was obtained at Columbia University and California Institute of Technology, he also possessed admirable, hands-on administrative skills. He used them during especially sensitive times such as the student protest period at the U. during the Vietnam War and at NASA when the space agency tried to mitigate the Challenger disaster.
While working for Hughes Aircraft he was instrumental in developing the Falcon air-to-air missile and the F-102 interceptor. As associate director of the Ramo-Wooldridge Corp. he was responsible for all American intercontinental ballistic missiles and helped develop the country's first space probe.
While U. president he forcefully directed the school's most extensive expansion in history, causing many of his associates to conclude that he was the greatest and most energetic president the institution had ever seen.
But his greatest legacy was not the university's unparalleled physical and academic growth, but his uncommon ability to mediate disputes between students, faculty and administrators with gentle and tolerant wisdom.
In 1986, he reluctantly accepted then-President Reagan's call to head NASA a second time in order to lend his prestige to the beleaguered agency. Following a brief tenure and the third successful post-Challenger mission, he returned to a distinguished professorship at the University of Pittsburgh.
His family can receive comfort in the knowledge that his life was unusually diverse, remarkably successful - and for all of that, unmmistakably humane.