A computer scientist on Main Street: Killebrew was pioneer woman in space program
When you meet Rachel Elkins Killebrew these days, it’s usually in The Collection, her local business on Main Street.
Just looking at this personable lady probably wouldn’t make most of us think “computer scientist” but we’d be way off base, because that’s exactly what she is.
Killebrew was one of the first female computer specialists hired by IBM to work on the Saturn 5 rocket project at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The Saturn 5 was the rocket that powered the Apollo missions during the heyday of NASA’s early space program.
She worked with many of the premiere rocket scientists of that era while she was training with IBM at the rocket center in Huntsville, Ala., in the late 1960s, including Werner Von Braun, the famous German rocket scientist who came to the U.S. after the war.
She traveled the world while working for TWA as the head of computer systems for the airline’s maintenance department.
But her amazing journey began right here in McMinnville as the daughter of Joe and Emma Thompson Elkins. She grew up in Warren County and attended City High School, where she was involved in various school activities.
“I was a majorette and played basketball, basketball was my first love,” she recalls.
After high school she went to Tennessee Tech and got a B.S. in mathematics and German, somewhat unusual choices for a female in those days, but choices that were to prove advantageous.
“I always loved math and math was easy for me, and at that time the only advice I got was do what you love so I really didn’t think about what I would do for work, but I took math and I loved it.”
Little did she know that computer pioneer and corporate giant IBM would soon come calling.
“I interviewed with IBM, it was in ’64, and the space program was just starting up at Kennedy Space Center,” Killebrew remembers. “They were hiring math and German majors around the country, which was interesting because the Germans were leading the space program then. So I went to school for a year with them in Huntsville under Von Braun, then they moved me to Kennedy Space Center in ’66.”
The school was the IBM special class on the Apollo/Saturn Project when IBM had the contract for that project.
Rachel helped write programs for those functions, and also did testing and simulator programs in Huntsville which required a lot of back and forth travel from Cocoa Beach where she lived at the time.
Being a woman at that point in the evolution of computer science presented some unique problems Killebrew recalls. It was still pretty much male dominated at that time.
“When I first went down there, they didn’t even have a ladies restroom,” Killebrew said. Someone had to stand at the door while she used the facilities.
IBM’s rules of attire for women was also problematic, since the company didn’t consider there might be a lady on the launch platforms.
“With IBM you had to dress up in high heels, so I would go all night and work on the mobile launcher and have to climb those grated steps in high heels and a suit, and it was like a hundred degrees, and you were sweating,” Killebrew said. “So those were the old days. Things have come a long way.”
Killebrew left IBM in 1973 when she and her husband moved to Atlanta, where she worked for a consulting firm, Management Science America. She did a lot of traveling as well, installing software for various concerns like Boston State Street Bank, Xerox, W.R. Grace and Virginia National Bank.
She eventually got a job with TWA through a fluke meeting with some company officials. She then moved to Kansas City and worked for TWA, circling the globe several times with her son Winston Denton, until she moved back to Warren County in 1986. Since moving back home, she has worked for AEDC and run her own consulting firm, but most of her days now are spent trying to improve her hometown.
“The reason I came home really is because our little town had been deteriorating so bad,” she said. “I always said some day I’m going to come home and dedicate the rest of my years to helping McMinnville, so I did.”
Killebrew, Amy Stanford, and Cliff Davidson started the Main Street program here some five years ago. She is on the board of Magness Library and Heritage Alliance, and is a member of the Breakfast Rotary Club. She is also working on a museum now which will be in honor of Dad Lively who ran the Southern School of Photography, and was a famous inventor and photographer.
Having recently retired from AEDC, Killebrew is currently involved with Battelle, one of the most prestigious non-profit research “think tank ” companies in the U.S. – a company instrumental in the development of the most ubiquitous technologies that make our modern lives easier and more efficient, including compact discs, Xerox dry-process copying technology, bar codes and the idea for the “sandwich” coin now used for, dimes, quarters and silver dollars.
“She has done so much in her life,” said friend and Magness Library Director Mary Robbins, “but I think that what she’s doing right here now in McMinnville is the most significant thing that she’s ever done. She came home just to help build the downtown back up and help preserve it.”
Rachel agrees that is her main priority these days.
“I really, really, want to see our town alive again,” she says, “I really want to see that before I die.”