Van der Woude, Jurrie., 1935-

In 1945, the U.S. Army funded the Jet Propulsion Laboratory by pouring $3 million into new JPL facilities that included an administration and office building; complementing the expansion of personnel. JPL 's connection to Caltech was vital to staffing the organization, which counted about 385 employees. In January 1958, JPL and ABMA, (Army Ballistic Military Agency) launched Explorer I, the United States' first satellite, under the Lab's Directorship of William Pickering.

Public demands for information about JPL activities, which had always been there, suddenly increased when JPL first considered the idea of launching missions to other planets. However, JPL timetable of eighteen flights in five years after1958 was exceedingly optimistic. In October 1958, NASA drafted an outline to support a long-range program for space exploration with JPL. By this time, the Laboratory's growth tripled its staff. Due to popular demand, also in 1958, JPL develop its first Public Relations Office headed by Chris Clausen. JPL realized it was necessary to find someone to serve as liaison between the Lab and news services, newspaper personnel, magazine reporters, radio and TV, with regard to news releases, interviews and public appearances of scientific personnel as well as various requests for photographs.

...