Born in 1921, Willard "Raff" S. Rafferty earned his degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University. Trained under the Command and General Staff School, he served in World War II European Theater for forty-four months and retired from the Army Reserves as colonel. From 1949 to 1960, he worked at Sperry Rail Service in Danbury, Connecticut, as an engineer, ending as the supervisor of the Railroad Engineering Group. From 1960 to 1981, he worked at Perkin-Elmer Corporation as Senior Engineer in engineering and program management of numerous classified electro-optical space surveillance programs. He also participated in several proposals of such devices and projects as the Lunar Lander, specifically in engineering, management, and senior editing. Corporation sales grew during this period, from $15 million to a billion.
