Pete Pasini, 90, worked for Lockheed on Space Shuttle Program

Published in the Dec. 21, 2016 – January 3, 2017 issue of Morgan Hill Life

By Robert Airoldi

Photo by Robert Airoldi
Pete Pasini and his wife Teri in their Morgan Hill home. The couple has been married for 68 years.

A single-minded perseverance was the key to Pete Pasini’s first job as a machinist. After his discharge from the U.S. Army in 1946 and a two-year term in Germany as part of the U.S. Army Reserves, he returned to his hometown in New Jersey and began looking for a job. His older brother was a machinist and Pasani, 90, admired what he did and wanted to follow in his footsteps, but his brother told him to get a white-collar job.

“I took his advice and sold insurance for a few years,” he said. “It was boring to me and management knew it, so I got out.”

He tried getting work at Grumman Aircraft but was rejected repeatedly. Determination drove him to return every week for 10 weeks until they finally took him on as a machinist on a trial basis.

“I wanted that job,” Pasini said with a grin.

He stayed there until 1960 when his brother-in-law told him he could easily land a job at Lockheed in the Bay Area.

While working there he helped build parts for rockets, including the Space Shuttle program; worked out a way to transport the tiles that go on the shuttle that saved the company $10 million; and the last four years of his career — before retiring in 1992 — he was assigned to the CIA working on upgrading their reconnaissance satellites.

While working on the shuttle program, there was a point when a vehicle that was supposed to go into space was missing components that opened the nose cone. “We were in a bind,” he said. “I worked out a series of things we could do to make the parts in the shop. That saved the contract from failing and the engineers were amazed.” Later he was put in charge of all tooling for the Space Shuttle program. “That was God’s gift to me, working at Lockheed,” he said. “I liked working with my hands and building and creating things.”
Born on a chicken farm in Milmay, New Jersey with two brothers and a sister to an Italian father Russian mother, he was mostly raised by his maternal grandmother and spoke very little English when he began school.

Married in 1949 to Teri, now 87, the couple will celebrate 68 years together in April. They met one night when Pete, who played football with Teri’s brother-in-law, was visiting and they were introduced. Pete walked her home, but life happened and they didn’t see each other for a year until a chance meeting in the subway. Pete asked her out, but she initially declined. “I said, ‘I don’t know you well enough.’” But after her sister convinced her otherwise, they began dating.

After living in San Jose for years, the couple decided the city was growing too fast and was getting very crowded, so they began looking to move. They were close friends with one of their neighbors and both began house hunting, hoping to again live near each other. The Pasini’s bought a one-acre ranch in the early ’70s, but as they grew older it became too much work so in the mid-’90s they moved to their home off Dunne Avenue. Their good friends ended up in San Martin.

Today the couple enjoys dining out at The Cheesecake Factory and Olive Garden in San Jose where some of Teri’s family lives, and Bubble’s locally. They have good friends and great neighbors who take good care of them, bringing them food and companionship.

“We have plenty to do if we want and we have a lot of good friends,” he said.

He volunteers for the Elks Lodge in San Jose where he attends every Monday and with the Knights of Columbus. They also spend time visiting their daughter, three granddaughters and three great-granddaughters in Arizona, especially during the winter. Their son died at 58 while in the Navy in 2014 from a rare disease.

Asked what keeps a marriage going for nearly seven decades, Teri said “good communication.” With a sly smile and his sense of humor showing, Pete said it was “yes, dear.”
But then he added seriously, “I have a very good wife and a very good life.”