Jere Matty retiring after 30 years at AEDC

  • Published
  • By Patrick Ary
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  For Jere Matty, working at Arnold Engineering Development Center was a perfect fit. He literally saw the writing on the wall on his first day.

The wall was a stall in a bathroom at the von Kármán Gas Dynamics facility. The writing was a differential equation someone had been working on.

"At a pilot training base there's stuff written on the wall, but it's not differential equations," Matty laughed. "It wasn't a joke. It was for real. It turns out this is just a great place for engineers. That was my first introduction to Arnold."

Now, after 30 years at AEDC, Matty has seen new writing on the wall. This time, the wall is in his Space and Missile Ground Test Complex office, where he has served as deputy director since 2006.

The writing says it's time to retire.

"I'll probably go into culture shock after coming out here for 30 years," Matty said. "Sometimes I'm driving in the car and I end up out here. I wasn't even thinking about coming out here, I just kind of drive out here. So that might happen."

Matty, whose last day is Feb. 24, has made the drive out to AEDC since 1981. Before he was assigned here as a project engineer for the Reentry Systems Testing Branch, he attended the U.S. Air Force Academy and served as a T-38 Talon flight training instructor at Reese Air Force Base, Texas. The change in scenery came after a medical issue prodded him down a career path that utilized his engineering degree.

Matty didn't come alone - his wife Rosemary, who had been working in the civil engineering branch at Reese AFB, was also assigned to Arnold. To Matty's knowledge, they were the first joint spouse assignment at AEDC.

"When I got done in the flying business, I wasn't sure I could do anything else," Matty said. "Rosemary convinced me that I could be an engineer, and she was right. I was surprised. I really thought the only thing I could do was flying. What I was really cut out for was not flying for a living, but flying as a hobby."

Jere and Rosemary met when they were in the ninth grade and Rosemary's family moved next door to Jere's in Chesapeake, Va. They graduated high school first and second in their class - her first - and both started their Air Force careers. They got commissioned, graduated and married all within a couple of weeks.

"She actually commissioned me," he said. "She was a lieutenant first."

Matty started out working in the Reentry Systems Testing Branch working with the arc heaters, while he was still an Air Force lieutenant. He later moved into the technology division.

"The good thing in technology is we got to work with all the facilities - you know, things like pressure sensitive paint, the probes that look into the engines when they're in full afterburner," Matty said. "I didn't hands-on do any of these things. I was just in the technology division when these things were developed, and we just kind of helped them along."

When Matty talks about the accomplishments at AEDC, he tends to give the credit to others. When he talks about being able to get funding to upgrade Space Chambers 7V and 10V for sensor testing, he makes sure his co-worker, Jim Parker, gets more than his fair share of credit. When he mentions that he worked with the Department of Defense's High Performance Computing Initiative office to get funding for AEDC systems that helped develop software for the base and other DOD agencies, once again he downplays his role.

"Not that I was the smartest guy, but I was kind of the salesman for our smart CFD (computational fluid dynamics) folks, and they needed somebody like that," Matty said.

His wife confirms that Matty is not the type of person to boast about his accomplishments.

"He's more of a team player," Rosemary said. "Anything that's been done, he would like to give credit to the team. If you were going to say he was proud of anything, it would be his family."

While Jere and Rosemary are both engineers, their four children aren't necessarily following in their parents' footsteps (with the exception of their oldest son, Christopher, who works for Jacobs Technology and supports NASA in Houston). Their oldest daughter, Tina, works at Target headquarters in Minneapolis. Maria is a sophomore at University of Tennessee-Chattanooga and is considering a career as an art therapist. And their youngest daughter, Nicola, is a junior at Tullahoma High School; she's interested in business.

"To them, engineering is nerdy," he laughs.

Matty doesn't have set plans for retirement. Rosemary is still working at AEDC, and their youngest daughter is still in high school. But he does have a long list to prioritize.

"He's already planning more than he can do in a lifetime," Rosemary said.

Near the top is their first grandson. Son Christopher won't be at Matty's AEDC retirement party because he and his wife are in Houston, expecting a child any minute.

Matty wants to get involved with other people's kids as well through AEDC's science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) program. He plans to volunteer at local schools and help young people realize that engineering is a field that touches more aspects of their lives than they realize.

"You need lawyers. You need politicians and those guys, but what they're really interested in is dividing up the pie," Matty said. "What engineers do is make the pie bigger. And when you think about where we are now with just cell phone technology, or integrated circuits or all of those things that came from the space program, it's just astounding how life changes with those things. So when they ask why go back to the moon or why go to Mars, it's not about going to the moon or Mars. It's about all the stuff you'll learn on the way there."

He also wants to stay involved with Special Olympics, which he has volunteered for several years.

"It's a great program," Matty said. "Those kids are just wonderful. They don't care if they're first or last; they just want their day in the sun. They want to stand on that platform and be cheered for and they deserve that every day. They are just wonderful, wonderful kids."

And then, there's exercise.

During a routine flight physical when he was 45, doctors found a bicuspid aorta valve in Matty's heart. The valve wasn't opening or closing, and he was told he might not have lived another year if it hadn't been discovered.

Since the faulty valve was replaced with the valve from a pig's heart, Matty has spent the last 10 years as an "exercise and nutrition nut." He runs 15 miles a week, swims on Wednesdays, practices yoga and lifts weights twice a week. He can't keep track of how many marathons he has run.

Matty also enjoys skiing, scuba diving, playing piano and flying sailplanes. But even though retiring means he'll have more time for some of the myriad activities he enjoys, he's going to take it slow at least for a little while.

"I tell people I'll probably set an alarm clock so I can get up in time for my nap," he jokes. "I don't want to miss out on any loafing, you know."

And when it comes to leaving AEDC, Matty knows the base is in good shape to continue without him.

"AEDC is a great place," he said. "One of the things that impresses me the most is recently we've hired a lot of new young folks - both on the Air Force and ATA side - and I'm very confident that these young folks will do just fine. They're very enthusiastic, they're sharp and a lot smarter than I was at that age. So they're going to do just great. It's good to know the center will be in good hands in the future."