Gary A. Hackett

Our last hero is also a staff member at Lincoln Lab, where he has worked for more than 22 years. He is the person responsible for administering an elaborate college recruiting program that is the core of the laboratory’s professional staffing, and colleagues say that his dedication is the engine of this flawlessly run program. He is constant in his service to Lincoln, always in touch, even while traveling on its behalf.

His interpersonal skills have built a nationwide network of contacts at colleges and universities, through which he advances the lab’s interests and channels high quality candidates to its technical groups. He stepped in last year to shepherd 100 interns through the Summer Research Program at Lincoln when they were suddenly without a coordinator, but his commitment to interns is longstanding; he has placed students from MIT and Northeastern at Lincoln for years, mentored them, and once even found lodging for a student who needed just a little more time to complete a project. He found the student housing in his neighborhood, and drove her to and from Lincoln every day until her work was finished.

For his diligence and collaborative leadership to make good things happen for Lincoln Lab, we congratulate Gary Hackett.