1. Otto John Glasser was a lieutenant general in the United States Air Force and pioneering weapons scientist who played an important part in the development of the Atlas and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles.
16 Facts About Otto Glasser
1. 2.
Otto John Glasser was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on 2 October 1918, the son of Leo and Lillian Cave Glasser.
3.
Otto Glasser had two brothers, Leo and Robert, and two sisters, Ruth and Lois.
4.
Otto Glasser graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in engineering in May 1940, and was commissioned as a second Lieutenant in the Officers Reserve Corps.
5.
Otto Glasser married Norma Wilhelmina Mayo on 9 September 1943.
6.
Otto Glasser was then trained to fly the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress, the Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the Boeing B-29 Superfortress.
7.
Otto Glasser entered Ohio State University, where he earned a Master of Science degree in electronic physics in 1947.
8.
Otto Glasser was then assigned to the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
9.
Schriever was authorized to pick key members of his staff, and Glasser was one of his original four choices, known as the "Schoolhouse Gang", along with Lieutenant Colonel Beryl L Boatman, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Blasingame and Major Paul L Mare.
10.
Otto Glasser became the director of the Atlas program in February 1956.
11.
Test firings of Atlas missiles were expensive, so Otto Glasser instituted a program of intensively testing its components and subsystems with the aim of minimizing the number of test flights that would be required.
12.
In October 1959, Otto Glasser was assigned to the headquarters of the Air Research and Development Command at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland as the chief of the Air Force Ballistic Missile Division, which had superseded the Western Development Division on 1 June 1957, and then as the assistant deputy chief of staff for research and engineering.
13.
In February 1970, Otto Glasser became the Deputy Chief of Staff for Research and Development and Military Director of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board.
14.
Otto Glasser retired from the Air Force on 1 August 1973, with the rank of lieutenant general.
15.
From 1973 to 1986, Otto Glasser served with General Dynamics Corporation, where he rose to become its Vice President for Government Relations.
16.
Otto Glasser retired in 1986 to Sarasota, Florida, where he died on 26 February 1996.