PATH OF A WARRIOR Alumni Spotlight
HARVEY A. SMITH COLD BEANS OUT OF A CAN A lawnmower, a broom, a rag, a wrench, a backpack. This list of everyday items may seem like a simple collection of things lying around the house. But to Harvey Smith, these items illustrate an extraordinary journey of personal and professional achievement that starts one stride behind a lawn mower in an airfield and ends with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin safely setting foot on the surface of the moon. Cold Beans Out of a Can is the story of one man’s unconventional path to
his childhood in rural Massachusetts, where, as a teenager, he trained as an air-
craft mechanic and pilot, to his role heading up fift y design engineers working on the life-support backpack that would accompany astronauts to the moon,
Smith’s story is a glimpse into the myriad details and heroic effort that went into America’s success in winning the race to the moon fift y years ago. In a style both folksy and informative, Smith describes how he started work-
What started out as a hobby and enjoyment for writing, his book, “Cold Beans Out of a Can,” was molded into his personal testimony about how hard work, self-made opportunity and diligence can shape the lengths any individual can go in this life. It is a story of confidence and diligence. It is one with a simple philosophy instilled in him by his grandmother at a young age: “If you work hard, you will always have a good job and you will do good.” ing on and flying airplanes at age fifteen, attending aircraft mechanics school
while pumping gas at night and subsisting primarily on beans out of a can. After graduation, Smith worked as an FAA-licensed aircraft mechanic, performing major structural repairs, engine overhauls, and airworthiness inspec-
tions, at one point sawing a glider in half and welding it back together. Later,
he went on to college, where he studied aeronautical engineering, landing a job at a high-tech startup specializing in jet-engine thrust, before finally going to work on the Apollo program at Hamilton Standard, a NASA subcontractor.
Along the way, Smith had plenty of adventures, both in the air and on the
ground, culminating in the controlled chaos of the Apollo program, where his
division succeeded in producing a life-support system that astronaut Rusty Schweickart would test for the first time in space and that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin would use just four months later, when Apollo 11 set down on the moon.
HARVEY A. SMITH holds a bachelor’s degree in aeronautical engineering from Indiana Technical College (now Indiana Institute of Technology). He is the author of multiple articles on flying and space history, as well as a licensed aircraft mechanic and private pilot. He recently took glider/sailplane instruction, including soaring—gaining altitude in rising air as hawks do. Smith and his wife, Cecile Simone Morin Smith, have four grand-
SMITH
becoming an engineer and department head on the Apollo moon project. From
their machinery. All of this invigorated Harvey to the point that he never saw working on planes and their components as work. He got such an enjoyment out of it, it was never a chore. It was an opportunity to learn and to grow in what he loved.
Bert Marona, the manager at the West Brookfield (Massachusetts) Airfield, and other pilots took him under their wings and taught him all the ins and outs of the mechanics in aircraft. Although he started without any formal training in aeronautical mechanics, Harvey became incredibly knowledgeable and skilled at diagnostics and repair just by working alongside and asking all the right questions to those who did the jobs. From Teenage Aircraft Mechanic and Pilot
“I always knew exactly what I wanted to do. I had and made so many HARVEY A . SMITH opportunities by working hard. One Harvey’s book, job I had pumping gas, another in a “Cold Beans Out of print shop, and I saw opportunity in a Can,” is available it,” Harvey shared about his journey. on Amazon. “There was no shame in any job, because I was using it to pursue a career and to put myself through what is now the Connecticut Harvey had always been drawn to aircraft. His Aero School for Aircraft and Aircraft Engines family tree and social circle were peppered with starting at age fifteen without relying on my pilots. Aunts and uncles, friends, early bosses, parents. Which is where the title “Cold Beans Out all would talk to him about the things they’d of a Can” came from. I ate them every day for done with their planes, the battles they fought and the limits to which they were able to push three years to save money to meet my goals.” children and two great-grandchildren. They live in Massachusetts.
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to Apollo Engineer
TIME AT TECH “When I got to Indiana Tech in 1959, I took a student-worker position under Professor Bennet Kemp working in the wind tunnel on Saturdays and after school. I worked doing welding and model prep in the aeronautics lab and then started also working on various mechanical tasks in the mechanical engineering lab for Dr. Ivan Planck and professor Edmund Napier.” Like so many graduates, he relishes what that experience was and the small groups that were created. “My professors were good leaders over and above,” Harvey said. “Even back then, we had small class sizes which were the best for learning. We were hands-on and really built relationships with our professors. We could do anything. I finished my time designing a high-performance single-seat aircraft for my senior project with instructor Siegfried Brunnenkant. Siegfried was an enthusiastic instructor and Tech grad who had designed a flying wing for his senior project, a very advanced and complicated design at the time.” Harvey never let the school’s small size faze him. “It doesn’t matter where you come from, it matters whether you can do the job or not. There should be no intimidators about where students go or where they come from,” Harvey said. “I
