The collection consists of correspondence, memoranda, Viewgraphs and presentation materials originated by C. R. Gates during his tenure as Assistant Laboratory Director for Technical Divisions and Associate Director. The collection is arranged in chronological order. Each year has a listing of correspondence, with the exception of 1989. The bulk of the collection is from 1980 to 1990. The Chronological Files begin in March 1980, when Gates was elevated to Deputy ALD for Technical Divisions, serving under Fred Felberg. Included in the early files are Weekly Significant Event Reports, written by Gates and sent to JPL Director Bruce Murray. Gates also advised Murray on pertinent Director's Letters and topics for Murray's periodic "State-of-the-Lab" talks. In November 1981, Gates wrote several drafts of a possible Director's Letter of memo which would be distributed to the Senior Staff announcing the part-time assignment of Terry Cole as Technology Advisor to the Technical Divisions. The memo was issued later in November 1981 as Office of the Director Interoffice Memorandum 81-20. Additionally, a November 13, 1981 memo to G. E. Nichols has several suggestions of topics for Murray's Fall 1981 talk to the Laboratory. A January 14, 1982 interoffice memorandum written by Gates to Distribution reported on a JPL visit by NASA Deputy Administrator Hans Mark. Mark had said that the planetary program of the 1970s was an aberration, and would not recur. The only long-term source of support for institutions such as JPL was the Department of Defense (DOD), and JPL had only a year to effect a transition and establish a DOD program. Gates noted in the memo that "the above message was significantly more stark and austere than any that our Division and Section Managers have been exposed to, and they reacted accordingly." The volatility of the situation was perhaps one reason why Bruce Murray decided to resign as Laboratory Director, effective June 30, 1982. A couple of memos planning the retirement ceremony are present in the collection. Also present is a draft of one scene from Murray's retirement skit, written by Gates. Gates presented the paper "The Voyager Mission to Jupiter and Saturn" in late June 1982, at the Thirteenth International Symposium on Space Science and Technology, held in Tokyo, Japan between June 28 and July 2, 1982. Represented in the collection is a rough draft of the paper, dated June 1, 1982, as well as an undated revision at the end of the month. Lew Allen was installed as the new Laboratory Director in October 1982. An interoffice memorandum dated September 23, 1982, from Gates to the Technical Division Managers and Deputies has notes for a preparation for briefings to Dr. Allen throughout October. The preparation includes a review of each division and section in the Technical Divisions. Gates also wrote a White Paper for Dr. Allen, dated October 24, 1982, titled "Organization of the Technical Divisions." Additionally, there is a draft interoffice memo issued by Gates and Robert Parks to Distribution, dated October 25, 1982, regarding Dr. Allen's briefing on Flight Project Implementation. Documentation on planning for the issuance of the 1983 Five-Year Plan for JPL begins in the collection in early March 1983. Included are early drafts of organization of the document and individual chapters. Drafts of various sections of the Five-Year Plan are present in the collection up to July 1983. A revision to the Five-Year Plan, dated January 1990, as well as a further revision, dated March 1990, are also represented in the collection. Included in the collection are discussion material used in various Executive Council Retreats and meetings. One example of this in the collection is discussion material used on a special Executive Council meeting on Workforce Planning, dated May 15, 1984. There was a modification in the organization in the Technical Divisions in December 1984. According to an interoffice memorandum from the Office of the Director dated December 10, 1984, four of the Divisions had sections moved, and two of these Divisions had their names changed. Documentation for this change is in the collection in November and December 1984, with the announcing memorandum, dated December 10, 1984, also in the collection. Present in the collection is material used in a presentation to NASA Administrator James Beggs on July 24, 1985. Gates briefed Beggs on JPL scientific and engineering capabilities. In May 1987, Robert Parks retired from a long JPL career, finishing as Deputy Director. Present in the collection are correspondence, dated April and May 1987, relating to a retirement party, which included a humorous skit with Parks cast as Mr. Spock. The Parks retirement skit is also included in the collection in the Miscellaneous Files series. With the retirement of Fred Felberg as Associate Director, Institutional at the end of July 1987, Gates was promoted to Associate Director in August. Gates' title was Associate Director, with no "Institutional" subtitle. An undated organization chart for the Office of the Director, located at the beginning of the August 1987 file, reflects this change. The documents in the collection reflect the promotion of Gates to Associate Director, as there is more documentation of burden budgets and other duties that were of concern to the Associate Director. The Fiscal Year 1987 Burden Budget Presentation to Fred W. Bowen, Manager of the NASA Resident Office at JPL occurred on October 30, 1987. The same presentation was made to the Senior Staff on November 9, 1987. Included in the collection are copies of presentation materials. Similar items are in the collection for the burden budgets of each year. Included in the August 1987 materials are several documents pertaining to an August 25 meeting of the Strategic Planning Council. The material includes an agenda, correspondence, and typed background notes. In early November 1987, Gates was called for jury duty. Gates provided copious information on his duties at JPL supporting his request to be excused. This information included information about JPL as an organization, the duties of the Associate Director, and examples of specific duties. The Final Report of the JPL Performance Evaluation for Fiscal Year 1987, dated March 4, 1988, is also present in the collection. Gates sent copies of the report to members of the Executive Council. Throughout the month of March there were numerous correspondence responding and reacting to the Performance Evaluation. Drafts of JPL Performance Evaluations recur periodically throughout the collection, especially in the years 1987-1990. In April 1988, a review was conducted of current programs at JPL to determine which ones effectively addressed the resource pool of scientists and engineers. The final report, titled "Scientists and Engineers for the Future: Support Programs," dated April 11, 1988, was written by Robert E. Sutherland, JPL Human Resources Manager. It is present in the Gates Chronological Files since Gates sent a copy to Noel W. Hinners, NASA Associate Deputy Administrator. In August 1988, an anonymous letter was sent to Stuart Evans of NASA expressing concern about the MASS Program. The Management and Administrative Support Systems (MASS) Program consisted of the planning, development, sustaining engineering, and operation of applications that involved the collection, processing, storage, and availability of JPL institutional resource data. The letter caused great concern at JPL. Several drafts of correspondence from Gates to Fred W. Bowen, Manager of the NASA Resident Office at JPL were written, and Bowen sent correspondence to the NASA Assistant Administrator of Procurement. A September 22, 1988 letter from Gates to Bowen addressed the anonymous letter with a detailed paragraph-by-paragraph response. Also in the collection is a January 20, 1989 report overview on the MASS Program conducted by Price Waterhouse. An October 20, 1988 memo supplies information on the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act of 1986. This was important to JPL due to the Arroyo Seco groundwater contamination problem. In 1983 contaminated drinking water was found in four wells located east of JPL. An engineering study concluded that the source of the contamination likely was JPL, which had disposed of waste materials in cesspools, an incinerator and dumping pits near the east end of the Laboratory up to around 1958. In September 1986, the JPL site was included in the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund toxic cleanup program. The three-page memo, dated October 20, 1988, is concerned with statutory matters and a preliminary assessment and site inspection of the location. On March 7, 1990, JPL presented officials of the City of Pasadena with a check of $1.125 million to help pay for past costs incurred by the City as a result of the contamination of the wells. The amount was part of a total of more than $3 million that JPL agreed to pay the City. An undated rough draft of a press release is present in the collection in the March 1990 file. In the November 1988 folder is an October 28 draft of a vision for NASA. The material provided a summary and supporting rationale, as well as a proposal for changing the agency's structure. The vision for NASA was to push the farthest frontiers into the 21st Century and beyond. There were four overarching goals: unlock the secrets of the universe, enable permanent human presence and activity in space, preserve the quality of life on Earth, and develop advanced aerospace technologies. A possible strategy was postulated that missions supporting the quality of life on Earth would be prevalent between 1990-99, the secrets of the universe from 2000-2009, and a human presence in space beginning in 2010. A final draft of "A Vision for NASA's Future" dated November 9, 1988, with an attachment dated November 21, 1988, is also present in the collection. There was concern about the leasing of off-Lab space by JPL during the late 1980s. In January 1989 there was further discussion on the issue. In mid-1987 plans were developed to move out of the Foothill Complex to the main Oak Grove site, although by mid-1988 it was apparent that there would be difficulty in accomplishing the task. The major reason for JPL to extend the leases on the Foothill complex and other off-Lab leases was the Challenger accident. In a report dated January 25, 1989, Gates wrote that in 1983 a number of projects, most notably Galileo, Ulysses, Magellan, and the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field/Planetary Camera were under development for launches prior to 1989. Because of shuttle delay projects, the earliest any of these projects were launched was in 1989. Present in the collection are several drafts of the report, as well as the final report on extending the off-site leases. There is a report dated February 23, 1989 concerning the Observational Instruments Laboratory (OIL) Building, another major Construction of Facilities project. The report concentrates on a comparative analysis of private construction and financing versus systems subcontract of instruments or leased facilities. Additionally, a presentation to NASA Headquarters regarding a procurement strategy for facilities privatization projects, dated March 28-29, 1989 is also in the collection. The presentation was made by Gates, William E. Rains and Fraser W. Draper. In the January 1990 file is an undated Interoffice Memorandum from Gates to the Senior Staff regarding changes in the NASA Productivity Program. The then-current program, Productivity Improvement and Quality Enhancement (PIQE) was being revised and changed by concepts of Total Quality Management (TQM). A March 13, 1990 interoffice memorandum from Gates to the Executive Council has two TQM documents attached that deal with the procedures of implementing TQM, as well as a description of TQM itself. TQM was patterned after the Japanese management method, itself formulated after World War II by W. Edwards Deming. The three basic concepts of TQM that were most applicable to JPL were Work Processes, Customer Identification, and Employee Ownership. There is a great deal of documentation regarding the Executive Council Retreat for March 29-April 1, 1990. Present in the collection in March 1990 are agendas and drafts of presentation material including copies of Viewgraphs, for each of the sections. An interoffice memo dated May 7, 1990 written by Gates made claims that JPL was undergoing an unplanned and unprecedented growth phase, ironically due to the Challenger accident in 1986. The catastrophe caused delays in JPL's major flight programs, which led to programs being stacked on top of one another rather than the traditional orderly progression of programs being completed and followed by succeeding programs. In addition to this, NASA had an increased demand for JPL's expertise in scientific instruments. Gates reported that in order to carry out the program that NASA had assigned to JPL, it was necessary that JPL increase its workforce by several hundred people in FY91. This unexpected period of richness for JPL also had a "facilities shortfall" as there was no space on-Lab for the new workforce, and additional leased space had to be located and acquired. This is documented in a memo titled "The Facilities Shortfall at JPL", dated May 14, 1990. In a memorandum dated June 14, 1990, Gates announced his retirement later in the year, around November 1. He had planned to stay on to help with the transition to a new Director, which was thought to occur in September. In reality, Lew Allen did not step down as Director until the end of December 1990, at the same time as Gates' retirement. Gates retired from JPL at the end of December 1990, but served as an on-call Senior Advisor until 1995. Present in the collection is a folder documenting his actions as a Senior Advisor. These actions included assisting in the preparation of Burden Budgets in 1991 and 1993. Gates also participated in Benchmarking visits to the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and to Hughes Space and Communications in May and June 1993. Also present in the collection is a memo, dated November 1, 1990, titled "Discussion Notes for Ed Stone," evidently an orientation for incoming Director Stone. The last item in the chronological files is a termination notice, dated May 31, 1995. It is the only item dated 1995 in the collection. Filed after the Chronological files are several subject-oriented files that were originally filed outside of the chronological filing system. These include: Travel Reports. The travel files contain travel report forms, correspondence, and memoranda related to Gates' travel, from 1980 to 1988. There are also selected files devoted to individual trips that were well documented. These included two separate files for trips to Tokyo in 1982, and to the 16th International Symposium on Space Technology and Science at Sapporo, Japan, in May 1988 that were given their own files by the originator. A European trip in May 1989, and Gates' attendance at a NASA/Contractors Conference in Huntsville, Alabama in the Fall of 1989 are also documented. AIAA/JPL International Conference on Solar System Exploration. The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and JPL held an international conference at Pasadena on May 19-21, 1987. Robert J. Parks was the General Chairman of the Conference Committee, with Gates as Technical Program Chairman. Gates also served as co-Chairman of the Program Committee. JPL personnel making presentations included Lew Allen, Pete Lyman, John Casani, Ron Draper, J. Randolph, Charles Elachi, Aden Meinel, Ed Stone, Marcia Neugebauer, John Beckman, John Gerpheide, Gentry Lee, Arden Albee and Bruce Murray. The international participants included representatives from the Russian, European, and Japanese Space Programs, including Roald Sagdeev, Jacques Blamont, Roger Bonnet, and Minoru Oda, among others. The folder included correspondence documenting the invitation of the presenters. Also, a VIP dinner was held at the Athanaeum at Caltech on May 19. Copies of correspondence inviting Sagdeev and others are also included. A copy of the Program is also included in the collection. Project Management Class. This includes presentation and Viewgraph material on a presentation made by Gates during October 1990. The presentation was an overview of the changing management of JPL throughout time. Robert Parks Retirement Skit. Included in the collection are several drafts of a humorous skit performed at the retirement party for longtime JPL'er Robert J. Parks. The skit was written by Gates, who also served as the narrator. The skit was titled "Starship JPL" with the Parks character as Mr. Spock, and the rest of the JPL people in various "Star Trek" roles. The skit was performed towards the end of June 1987 at the Altadena Town and Country Club. Lew Allen Retirement Skit. Numerous drafts of humorous skit titled "J Pan Land" are included. These drafts are dated from June 1990 to December 1990. The skit was performed on December 6, 1990. According to a memo dated June 12, 1990, the retirement party was originally scheduled for September 21, although for an unknown reason, Allen's retirement was postponed from October 1990 to the end of December 1990. Gates evidently was a main instigator in staging humorous skits at retirement parties. Also in the collection is a rough draft of part of the skit performed at Bruce Murray's Retirement, as well as a song in limerick form, dated February 7, 1984, sung at Deputy Director Charles H. Terhune's Retirement Celebration. Also in the collection is a skit written for a presentation to the Caltech Management Association. Gates attempted to explain the Matrix Management system by applying it to the Egyptian Pyramids, in a short humorous skit.
