{"id":8501,"date":"2016-11-11T07:00:55","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T12:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/?p=8501"},"modified":"2016-11-16T16:32:15","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T21:32:15","slug":"charlie-hahs-us-veteran-back-school-86","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/2016\/11\/charlie-hahs-us-veteran-back-school-86.html","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Hahs, US Veteran \u2013 Back to School at 86"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Charlie,<\/a>
Charlie, with a big smile, showing off his new computer on the first day of school<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A mechanical engineer from the University of Missouri of Science and Technology in Rolla Mo, Charlie started learning 3D software designing at the age of 86 years. His university education was interrupted when he spent two years in the Army. He spent the last year of the Korean War in the 984 Engineer Field Maintenance Company. During that time he was a machinist; he repaired sniper scopes and mine detectors. His company supported the troops on the front line.<\/p>\n

During Christmas vacation in the year 2014, Charlie\u2019s granddaughter Phoebe was showing him how she used SOLIDWORKS<\/strong> on her computer at the University of Tennessee. Charlie was so impressed with the quality of 3D design<\/strong> capabilities in SOLIDWORKS that he wanted to try it out. He found that as a US Veteran<\/a>, he could get a copy of the software for $20. However, he faced some technical issues during the download, and submitted a service request to SOLIDWORKS technical support. Larry Zolla<\/strong>, Senior Technical Customer Support Engineer, SOLIDWORKS, spotted this service request,\u00a0an 86 year old man going \u201cBack to School\u201d to learn 3D CAD<\/strong>, and reached out to Marie Planchard<\/strong>, Director of Education and Early Engagement at SOLIDWORKS. Marie was intrigued, and decided to encourage Charlie by gifting him a computer with a pre installed copy of SOLIDWORKS.<\/p>\n

During our chat, Charlie pointed out how he never really liked 3D capabilities in his previous CAD software, while he found \u201cSOLIDWORKS 3D very exciting. It was very different from 2D, and one could rotate the parts in space to look at them\u201d. Charlie was hooked, and is now a regular user of SOLIDWORKS 3D<\/strong>. He studied SOLIDWORKS at the Pellissippi State Community College<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie with his SOLIDWORKS teacher, Ramzi Ghezaw, on the last day of school<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charlie and\u00a0Gerry (formerly, Gerry Neal), now married for 62 years, they started their life together in Rolla, Mo. Gerry taught home economics in Rolla, and they lived in a small house near the university.<\/p>\n

After graduation, Charlie accepted a job with the St. Joseph lead company in Bonne Terre, Mo. \u201cThis was nice because it was closer to home in Sikeston, Mo\u201d, he says. During this time, he designed equipment for the refinery in Herculaneum Mo mills in Flat River Mo, and mining equipment in the then largest underground machine shop in the USA. He used slide rule and drafting table for all the design work back then. His last job role with St. Joseph was that of a Supervisor.<\/p>\n

In 1960, Charlie was invited to join the Oak Ridge National Laboratory<\/a> Engineering Department. There he designed special equipment for the trans uranium processing facility, and other nuclear related equipment.<\/p>\n

\"Hahs<\/a>
Hahs Designs Dispenser<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Quoting Charlie, \u201cOak Ridge Tennessee, \u2018The Secret City\u2019 is fortunate to serve our country in many ways\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A newspaper clipping celebrating the end of the war<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

He adds, \u201cBesides the weapons produced here, the same facility made many contributions to the space program by supporting NASA. The \u2018Rock Box\u2019 that was manufactured in the Y-12 Plant utilized the first CNC machines from tapes formulated from engineering drawings. Managers from the Y-12 Plant called on the ORNL <\/a>Engineering Division to design the special equipment that was needed to bring back uncontaminated rock samples from the moon.<\/p>\n

\"Rock<\/a>
Rock Box being manufactured at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Harrison Schmidt, who was a geology graduate, and an astronaut on APOLLO 15 consulted with the designers to ensure that the hardware was designed in accordance with the requirements laid down by NASA\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Images<\/a>
Images of a 35 Bag Dispenser<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The 35 Bag Dispensers were used on all Apollo Missions to bring back rocks in Teflon bags designed to ensure no hydrocarbons contaminated the samples. The APOLLO missions proved that there were no hydrocarbons on the moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The 35 bag dispenser on the moon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charlie went to Houston and asked astronaut Buzz Aldrin<\/a> to fill a bag with sand while he was in his space suit and in the Pogo Room. This was necessary because the space suit gloves make it difficult to manipulate small parts.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The 20 Bag Dispenser being used by two astronauts<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"An<\/a>
An astronaut using a 35 Bag Dispenser on the moon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The special Geneses Rock Bag, was designed with special knitted padding to protect special delicate rocks during the trip back to earth. Charlie designed all of these bags. The drafting board and slide rule were the main tools for this work.<\/p>\n

\"Special<\/a>
Special Geneses Rock Bag<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

After the APOLLO program ended, Charlie was asked to support the Marshall Space Flight Center<\/a> in Huntsville Alabama in an effort to study the properties of metal that solidified while it was suspended in space. Special towers were first used to capture this process; however, to study metals like Niobium which melts around 4000 F, a new approach was needed; experiments in the Zero-gravity of space seemed promising.<\/p>\n

Charlie and Richard Fox, both in the ORNL I&C division, designed\u00a0 a very small Radio Frequency coil assembly that could levitate 5 mm spherical samples of metal, hold the samples in position, and melt the sample without the use of the shuttle.<\/p>\n

\"Radio<\/a>
Radio Frequency Levitation of Silver ball<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"A<\/a>
Charlie, Joe and Linda in the Zero Gravity Boeing KC-135 air craft doing the first Zero Gravity experiments<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

During one day\u2019s work, the KC-135 would climb to about 25,000 to 35,000 feet, and then tip over to experience the micro-gravity; and repeat this parabolic flight procedure 40 times. \u201cFor about 26 seconds we experienced Zero gravity. Linda was second in command of the Zero G program in Houston Texas.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie and Linda experiencing zero gravity at KC-135<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

As it turned out, it was possible to do these under-cooling experiments in the laboratory and the shuttle was not needed\u201d, he told.<\/p>\n

Later, Charlie requested a transfer to the Gas Centrifuge Development program at the K-25 Plant in Oak Ridge. He was given the job to develop special valves needed for the Gas Centrifuge plant. After the development, his company purchased valves for the first plant for 50 million USD.<\/p>\n

When the Gas Centrifuge Development program was closed, Charlie asked to be transferred to the Instrument and Control Division of ORNL. He was given the task of learning computer drafting at the local college, and then teaching it to the division drafting personal. He started to learn CAD to make the drawings here. After this program, Charlie was asked to contact NASA to find suitable projects for the I&C division, where he developed the RF Levitator for the Marshall Space Flight Center.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Oak Ridge newspaper clipping, tells the story of Charlie\u2019s work with NASA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Charlie retired in the year 1992, and now enjoys his time fishing, gardening and in his words has \u201ca great life\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie and a 22 inch trout<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, once an engineer, always an engineer! He now has a machine shop in his basement to make things he designs using the SOLIDWORKS. Charlie now lives in Oak Ridge TN with his wife of 63 years. Charlie and Gerry together have 3 children and 4 grandchildren.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie with his wife, children, and grandchildren<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dan, their eldest son is an electrical engineer, working in the area of nonlinear dynamics in Huntsville, Al. Dan\u2019s 9 year old son Silas is a great student and likes Minecraft. Their second son Chuck is a mechanical engineer who worked for IBM and Motorola in Boca Raton FL before moving to Poland. In 1992 at Motorola, Chuck introduced, using 3D scans for comparison of a 3D model with the actual fabricated part, a concept he named as Computer Aided Verification (CAV). He is now working for a German Company in Wroclaw Poland. Chuck and his wife Teresa, who is an English professor at the University of Wroclaw in Poland, have a 10 year old daughter Carla, and a 14 year old son, Filip. Filip has been using SOLIDWORKS in designing computer cooling blocks and is now designing a small boat. Charlie\u2019s daughter Carolyn is a mechanical engineer, and works for a Government contractor in Oak Ridge, TN. Carolyn and her husband Bruce, have a daughter Phoebe, who is also a mechanical engineer and works at the Savanah River Plant in Aiken SC.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie with his wife, and children<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Last February, the dove on Charlie\u2019s shoulder in the picture below, came to the bird feeder, as he was filling it with sunflower seed.<\/p>\n

\"Charlie<\/a>
Charlie with his new friend, Skipper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Skipper, as he calls her with love, seems to have adopted Charlie and has been hanging out with him for over 9 months. Skipper\u00a0rides on his “Kabota”, and visits him in his garden.<\/p>\n

Thank you Charlie, for sharing your amazing story with us! You are an asset, and an inspiration to the SOLIDWORKS Community.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  A mechanical engineer from the University of Missouri of Science and Technology in Rolla Mo, Charlie started learning 3D software designing at the age of 86 years. His university education was interrupted when he spent two years in the<\/p>\n... Continued<\/a>","protected":false},"author":349,"featured_media":8488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5498,5381,4184,4183,5491,5492,4015,5722,5210,5211,1],"tags":[3934,4016,5708,5835,4177,4118,4789,5698,4452,4017,3931,4275,5319],"class_list":["post-8501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aerospace","category-cad-2","category-cad-instructor","category-cad-teacher","category-customer-stories","category-design-2","category-mechanical-engineering","category-research","category-science-2","category-technology-2","category-uncategorized","tag-3d","tag-3d-cad","tag-aerospace","tag-back-to-school","tag-community","tag-mechanical","tag-mechanical-engineer","tag-mechanical-engineering","tag-nasa","tag-research","tag-solidworks","tag-solidworks-education","tag-us-veterans"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/349"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8501"}],"version-history":[{"count":25,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8530,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8501\/revisions\/8530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.solidworks.com\/teacher\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}