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When John Palmé left ILS a little over three years ago, his supervisor told him, "You’ll be back – rockets get into your blood." At the time, Palmé had been with ILS for three years and was working a launch campaign in Baikonur as a spacecraft integration manager. The extensive travel and time away from his family influenced him to accept a position working with spacecraft and launch vehicle hardware that supposedly would allow him to stay closer to home. As the years passed, however, his new position forced him to spend more and more time away from home. The longest stretch was a recent seven-month assignment in California, while his wife and children stayed in the Washington, D.C., area.
Shortly after he returned from that trip, Palmé had a phone call with Jim Bonner, vice president of technical operations and CTO at ILS. The two discussed the possibility of him returning to ILS. Palmé talked the situation over with his wife and they decided that if they could survive a seven month-long trip, they could handle a couple of launch campaigns a year. Palmé accepted an offer from ILS and returned as a program director this year, fulfilling the prediction of his old program director – who just happened to be Bonner himself!
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Palmé (R) and Bonner (L) recruiting new members at the Intelsat 10-02 launch in 2004.
