Lee was also a major test jumper in the US.  He jumped prototypes including the Barish Sailwing, the Rogolo Wing, the PC, the Voleplane, the Para-Foil and he also invented the static-line assit system used throughout America after PI's first fatality (a student, who jumped, snapped around and grabbed the pilot chute and went in without opening his reserve.  A probably suicide). 

After leaving PI, Lee worked for the Ocean County Police as a detective.  He also had an interest in a boat works.  Lee and wife Joan now live in Florida where he manages a boat works.

Most recent comments about him:
I was there when Lee got towed up in a Barish Sail Wing in a 20 knt wind.  It collapsed and he feel 50 ft., he was in the hospital with hurt back, 6 months later he came back to make his 1st jump since the accident and got a stand up dead center with a PC ! 

His website is at:  www.skydivegan.com/ngspc/gspc.html 
 

He was also FJC instructor to many of the people on this page.

CLICK to see the POND scrapbook

Lew's current address is 
1224 Noah Drive
Imperial, MO. 
63052-1644
1-646-464-3991

Click here for more on Pat and GI JOE.

Some people though Nick was a strange person and hard to get to know but all agreed that he was a confident, assertive man and had the ability to make students fell they could do anything a jump required.  Your webmaster had the pleasure of Nick being jumpmaster on several of his student jumps.  He was a true aviation pioneer.

Al built the first square canopy.

A Korean War Veteran, he was born in 1930 and is a University of Pa. graduate.  He opened a DZ with Steve Synder (later founder of Paraflite) called the Deleware Valley Parachute Club at Valley Forge, PA in the 50's.  He later hooked up with J.Istel in 1962 to run the World Meet at Orange SPC and then the 2nd Annual Governors' Cup soon after.  He later became an Inst/JM when Lakewood opened.  He lived in Philidelphia and commuted to PI.  He frequently drove (raced actually) to Lakewood after work and jumped in a white shirt and tie rather than miss the last load.  He was also a pilot though we don't believe he flew for PI. 

Bob and his wife Debbie, now live in Harpers Ferry,VA where he has a firearms/ammunition business.  Bob was a true pioneer of the sport and should be better remembered than he is. He is shown here piloting a bi-plane. 

Remarks from a recent chat: I can recall — starting since mid-1962 (when I got my FAA Rigger certificate; not SENIOR certificate, which did not exist at the time) and as a regular weekend rigger at PI's Orange Sport Parachute (OSPC) in Massachusetts, packing 24-foot twill reserves made by many companies besides Pioneer, Irving, Switlik, and Atlantic (including: American Lady Corset Company , Cole of California, Sigmund Eisner, Jayval Manufacturing, Jayval of  New Mexico, Reliance, Mills Manufacturing, Security Parachute Co., Victory Parachutes, Vanity Fair Mills, Pioneer of Canada, Mead Aviation,  National Automotive Fibers, Naval Air Factory,  Fashion Frocks, M. Steinthal, I Miller Parachute Corp., Hightstown Rug Co., J.G. Menihan Corp., Standard Manuf acturing, Standard Parachute Company,  Alamo Manufacturing, Irving Great Britain, Richard Khronke Fallschirmwerke, Brugemann and Brand KG, E.F.A.  (France), and a bunch of "Unknowns." 

The writer might be correct about about the time reference of Korea. I
ocasionally noted a "date of manufacture" for when a canopy had been made and most of those made by other than Pioneer, Irving, and Switlik were dated in the 1950s. 

The U.S. Government often went to makers such as Cole (swimsuits) and American Lady (women's wear) because they had great numbers of sewing machines and had vast experience in sewing fabrics. 

Beyond what is noted above (in eight logbooks recording 3,228 Back, 1,285 Chest, and 52 Seat personnel parachutes packed), I have another logbook covering the period of September 1969 through July 1970 for rigs "Packed as a Parachute Technician at Pioneer Parachute Parachute in Mabnchester, Connecticut." Therein are 469 packing records of special-purpose parachutes of wide-ranging end-use (e.g., engagement, extraction, flare, spin-check, and the like). If anyone on the list is interested, I can supply additional detail.

Other comments:  In 1969 I started working full-time as a parachute techncian at Pioneer Parachute Company at its Hale Road plant in Manchester, Connecticut. (This facility produced sport parachute equipment, which was only some 10 percent of Pioneer's total production; most of Pioneer's mostly military-contract work was done at its Columbia, Mississippi location.)

By then I had been sport parachute jumping since July 19, 1961, starting at the Orange Sport Parachute Center (OSPC) in Orange, Massachusetts (aircraft, Norseman; jumpmaster, Nate Pond/D-69). 

The following year I became an F.A.A. Parachute Rigger (Back/Chest/Seat) on August 2, 1962. Shortly thereafter I served as a Staff Parachute Rigger for the 6th World Sport Parachuting Championships held at OSPC.  (For the FAA's reasons of its own, all "Parachute Rigger" certificates were — only a couple weeks after I had received my certificate — upgraded to "Senior Parachute Rigger.") 

Working at Pioneer/Manchester (PIPAR) from September 9, 1969 through July 9, 1970,  I packed 464 parachutes of all types and sizes for a wide range of applications (engagement, drag, extraction, mid-air retrieval, G-11 cargo, ring slot deceleration, flare, water recovery, spin check, instrument recovery), including only a few personnel emergency parachutes.  (All told, in my active parachute packing career — eight years of it spent at OSPC — I packed 5,114 sport and emergency parachutes (3,228 Back, 1,285 Chest, 52 Seat) PLUS the 464 noted above, maintained in a separate Pioneer Parachute Company log book.) 

My own first two ram-air canopy jumps were made on Para-Planes, under the supervision of Steve Snyder at his Cameron Air Park DZ in Lumberton, New Jersey on August 5th, 1971 using a Cessna 205 each time. I did not pack either rig, relying on Steve's riggers, but I'm certain they both had rings-and-ropes reefing systems. I know I was highly impressed with forward speed and landing accuracy after countless "cheapo", "LoPo," and PC jumps.

Mike wore dark glasses to conceil the fact he had lost an eye.  Despite this handicap he had a great jumping career.  He went on to get a Doctorate and the last we knew, he was busily working at counseling veterans.

Being a teenager in the 60's and late 50's meant you kept your place, played bouncy ball sports and were "seen and not heard".  These kids took on a sport that far exceeded the minimal demands of throwing a ball around in a high school game and learned skills that were much more demanding and important.  3 reported that they suffered some problems in school because they jumped, not only from the other students but from the faculty who thought they weren't keeping their place.

For many PI's  "Boy and Girl Skydivers" as well as others around the country, it was the first step to other things.  Most of them moved on to bigger better things in the sport and life.  Just a read of the details below show what a cut above the rest that they all were.  What's amazing is that it was very difficult to get a lot of them to really blow their horn about it.

We know that 5 of them were members of the US Air Force Auxiliary (also known as the CAP) while still in high school, 4 were pilots at an age when they couldn't even legally drive a car yet and at least 2 are decorated Viet Nam War heroes!  Oddly enought both are Air Force.  At least 8 actually worked for PI while in high school.

All but one is still with us and our dear departed died from natural causes.  If nothing else they will have the advantage of being younger and will eventually be the last of the PI veterans in the sport.

When she turned 16 she told Jim and Marge she wanted to make a jump.  Jim and Marge were a bit apprehensive. This was a teenager (like all teenagers) who couldn't remember to turn off lights, close cupboard doors, etc., and who thought "I'm sorry" fixed everything. Marge went on to say,
  

Drop zones include: Lakewood and Orange, Applegarth (NJ), Ft Sill (OK), Frisco Ridge (OK), Frederick (OK), Post Field (OK), Elk City (OK), Ap Dong (Viet Nam),  Schelleville (CA), Livermore (CA), Santa Ynez (CA), Lake Elsinore (CA) Perris (CA), Yolo Co. (CA), Littleton (CO), Columbine (CO), Longmont (CA), Canon City (CO) and Pakenham and Berick in Australia just to name a few. 

"When I went to Thailand in 1966  I jumped  with Thai and American GI's for the METRAPAP FOUNDATION to raise money for schools in the provinces.  We jumped a Caribou in the north at a huge soccer field were there were no roads in, no airport and  most of the people had never seen an airplane much less a person with blonde hair and blue eyes.   The Thai's thought I was the reincarnation of BUDDHA. There were some  60,000 people on the ground for that jump.  We dropped out of the back of a CARIBOU in 5 sticks of 6 people each.  When I got to the ground I just missed a guy on a bicycle.  When I took off my helmet and goggles, the crowd started bowing down to me thinking that I was some kind of Divinity.  (Webmasters' Note: This is of course the correct way that all skydivers should be treated at all times!  :-) AND do we possibly have here the true origins of the term "Sky God"!)  Then they carried me off the field with the other lesser mortals for lunch! 

    We got out by train that was three hours late.  We had started out from  the town of LO PURI at a Thai airstrip.  They flew us to Ubon in Northeast Thailand to pick up our lift in the CARIBOU whose pilot was drunk the night before , but flew real well in daylight.  The Thai's got us to Ubon in a C-119 whose starboard engine died on final with all of us waiting anxiously in the cargo bay for the port engine to join its' dead brother.  In another aircraft the Thai military had a number of their troops drop in a perimeter around the DZ for our protection since there was ongoing "enemy" troop movement in the area (on Thai soil).  Of course, we weren't armed ourselves which was typical for a place we weren't technically in.   Anyway we got out safe and alive.

     I jumped an  H-13 at  DON MUANG (BANGKOK  INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT) during children's, The King's Yearly Festival for the children of his subjects. It was like jumping off of a tall building with a giant fan on top blowing a big wind down on top of you.  An interesting experience."

He came from a family of airborne pioneers and daredevils.  His brother was an Orange original desert rat (above) and is now a TWA Captain.  His mother flew in air races around pylons and was very successful, often beating her male counterparts. She was a great lady 

Tom was a professional lecturer during his early years. He was in the public relations department of a large corporation and was dispatched to various groups interested in their products, to lecture on the subject requested. As a part time 'thing', he was a newscaster on radio station WPUT 'The Voice of Putnam County', Brewster, NY in the mid sixties. Later in life, he was hired as a radio talk show host on radio station WGHQ in Kingston, NY. He is now retired living in Lubbock, Texas. 

More recntly,  Tom should have been killed in his ultralite airplane crash when he was fifty years old. He may be the only pilot ever to survive an absolute vertical crash from over ten stories high. But he is still here and wrote a book on skydiving in 1999 (go to website) .  He has also has put together a movie based on film shot in the 50's and 60's.

(Photo taken in 2002)