Betty Spray: A woman with her eyes always on the horizon

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Betty Spray is, by her own admission, someone who has always had clear goals in life. Toward the end of high school, she had decided on a career as a secretary. 

Once that decision was made, she said there was no turning back. An unwavering focus on whatever goals she set were the hallmarks of her life. She is also someone who has rarely, if ever, backed down from a challenge. 

"In college, one of my professors told all of us, 'just so you know, you'll never make more than $6,000 a year,'" she recalled. "I think we were all just determined that we're going to prove him wrong, and, of course, we did. I'm one of those people if you tell me I can't do something, I will prove to you I can." 

Shortly after earning her secretarial certification at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, she moved to Nashville to start a job with the Board of Education. Three years later, she was working at another job, but had decided she wouldn't be returning to Franklin County, or so she thought. 

In 1970, a day after Christmas, her father, Bill Lappin, who was working at Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC), was planning on taking a plane flight with a co-worker, Carl Spray, who was also the pilot. 

"So, Carl called him and said, 'well, I've got two more seats,'" she said. "My cousin and I were there, so we went with them. And the rest is history." 

Betty went back to Nashville and told her roommate she had met the man she was going to marry. Carl and Betty started dating and it soon became clear she would be competing with his first love, flying. 

"I figured out that if I wanted to see him, I was going to have to learn how to fly," she said. And somehow, Franklin County now seemed like a fine place to live. 

They got married on April 16, and by September, she had her private pilot's license. 

Since he was a flight instructor, she was also his student. 

In December 1971, she came to AEDC to work with the center's first contractor, Arnold Research Organization. For the next seven and a half years, she worked as a secretary to Tom Ellington, the branch manager for security. 

She also had to learn how to operate a switchboard, a teletype, help prospective employees fill out security clearance forms and assist visitors and base personnel at the pass and registration desk. 

Her collateral duties of working with security clearances and at the pass and registration desk also gave her the bigger picture - she learned who most of the center employees were. 

"There were about 4,000 people out here at that time," she recalled. 'It was an interesting time to be here." 

In the middle of 1978, she left work to raise her infant daughter and returned to AEDC two years later. 

It was also a busy time at home. She continued her flying lessons over the years and went on to earn a multi-engine rating, followed by her instrument qualifications, and finally a commercial rating. She even applied for a position as a commercial airline pilot. She went to Chicago and was interviewed for the job. 

However, two things gave her second thoughts about flying for a living. She soon realized the job required long hours away from home. The other reason was the one that grounded her - now she had a second child. The interview in 1987 came two years after her application. She had an eight-year-old daughter and an infant son. 

"I came back to work as a secretary for the deputy general manager for Pan Am in 1981," she said. "Then I became the executive secretary for the general manager for the company." 

Spray served as an executive secretary from 1983 to 1986. Then she was promoted and took on additional duties, including developing the award fee briefing and other special projects as an executive assistant. 

"In 1995, when ACS came in it was time for a career change," she said. "So, I went into contracts in 1995. I was in that for eight years before ATA got here. I've been a contract
administrator the whole time." 

Spray said she enjoyed the career change for several reasons. 

"You're never dealing with the same challenges for more than two days," she said. "Also, it involves a lot of research and you're in a position to make decisions - something I've always enjoyed." 

She said her job entails administrating the prime contract, interpreting it as well as all the other outside documents that go along with the contract. 

"We have modifications to the contract, like a change to the performance work statement," she said. "We coordinate all of these changes with the appropriate organizations to ensure agreement before signing the contract amendment. I also have three of the six major subcontracts - I administer those contracts to include writing modifications and processing the financial invoices." 

Her strong work ethic is something Spray learned early on. She credits her parents for instilling a solid sense of responsibility in her and the family's other siblings at a young age. 

"We always knew if you had a job to do, you did it right," she said. "And I was never someone to wait for someone to tell me what to do - I've always preferred to be proactive." 

Carl, who owns a corporate charter air service, still loves to fly. For years, the two have flown one of their aircraft to their vacation destinations. For many years they flew to the Bahamas. They enjoyed fishing in Canada, exploring Martha's Vineyard, Maine and snow skiing out West in Wyoming, Colorado, Utah and Montana. 

Betty said flying is peaceful. 

"It's fast and it's really safe - it's safer than driving a car," she said, but also acknowledged there have been some close calls over the years. 

"It was during my first year of flying," she recalled. "My brother lived on a mountain at the time and I was just flying around one afternoon and I thought I could go up and circle around his house, buzz his place a little bit. I didn't really get too low, but I got caught in one of the air currents." 

She knew from her husband that the rising currents would go back down, but eventually would deflect off the surface of the ground. 

"You tend to remember what your instructor tells you," she said. "I circled around two or three times and I thought, well, I'm going to started climbing out and go back to the airport in Winchester. I was flying a Cessna 150, and I pushed power all the way forward and I pulled my nose up a little bit to climb out, but my nose wasn't climbing anywhere - I was still going down. "

"hat's when I finally realized I'm in a downward air current. Carl had said the air currents deflect off of the Earth. I remember thinking, I sure hoped he knew what he was talking about. You had to concentrate on making sure you didn't pull the nose up too far. I rode it out and it was terrifying, but I got out of that one." 

What has she learned from her experiences as an aviator? 

"You have to watch your instruments," she said. "And vertigo is real." 

Over the years, flying became a family affair. Her son, Steven, a college student at Middle Tennessee State University, has the same pilot ratings as his mother. Lisa and her husband, Chris, are working toward their private pilot license. Chris is ready for his test and check ride. 

Betty enjoys the balance between her job at AEDC and her life above the clouds. 

"I'm really spoiled," she said. "AEDC has been good to me - just as all the contractors have been to me all these years."