Ivan Alexander Getting (Father of GPS.)

Many people are unaware that this revolutionary advance in navigational science was conceived, in part, through studies conducted at The Aerospace Corporation in the early 1960s. In addition, two of the men most responsible for its success have direct ties to Aerospace: Ivan Getting, the foremost initial advocate for GPS, was the corporation's founding president, and Bradford Parkinson, who headed the first GPS Joint Program Office, is chair of The Aerospace Corporation board of trustees. During the first half of the 20th century, researchers at various organizations were separately developing the technologies that would eventually be used to create GPS. By 1960, much of this work had coalesced in a manner that would place Aerospace at the heart of GPS research.