The
Aerospace Museum of California draws about 60,000 to 100,000
visitors every year and Ken Marlatt has been the Crew Chief
there for six years as of 2011. Ken was born in Santa
Barbara and grew up in Santa Monica. There he would hitch
rides to a general aviation airport in Culver City where he
washed and cleaned planes on the weekends. This fed his
interest in aircraft. Ken's mom also influenced him in
aviation since she worked for thirty two years as a quality
control employee at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Santa Monica.
Ken was discharged from the Air Force as a technical Sergeant
with a commendation medal after working on aircraft hydraulics,
power systems and landing gear systems on a variety of U.S. Navy
and U.S. Air Force planes.
Ken took pride in the zero defects that
his shop registered for maintenance over those years.
After the service, Ken taught at a San Jose vocational
school for fourteen years and earned a degree from
California State University in San Jose. Ken then
opened his own hydraulics business there, then worked in the
cryogenics "Bubble Chamber" at Stanford Research Institute
and then taught hydraulics for two years at the San Jose
City College. While in the service, Ken served ten
years in the U.S. Navy and then twenty years in the U.S. Air
Force.
