Vernon Hastings

Vernon Leroy Hastings (4 August 1917 – 19 July 2012) was a United States Air Force (USAF) officer and engineer who was charge of the design of base facilities for the Atlas missile, the United States' first Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and directed their deployment. He was also the head of the team that selected Camp Cooke, California, for the site for the first Atlas launch complex. This facility subsequently became Vandenberg Air Force Base. He was later the professor and director of the construction program at Arizona State University and helped raised millions of dollars for endowed scholarships for the Del E. Webb School of Construction there.

Early life and education Vernon Leroy Hastings was born in Table Rock, Nebraska, on 4 August 1917 and grew up on a farm. He had a brother, Robert, and three sisters: Lotus, Ida and Patricia. He attended school in Table Rock and graduated from Lincoln High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1935.

World War II On 9 November 1939 he enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps at Chanute Field, Illinois. He became a machinist instructor. In January 1942, soon after the United States joined World War II, he was selected for officer training and sent to the Army Air Corps's Officer Candidate School. He graduated in May, and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. His first command was a detachment of Air Corps cadets studying pre-meteorology at the University of Wisconsin. During the rest of the war he held various technical training appointments.

Hastings died at his residence in Sacramento, California, on 19 July 2012. His first wife, Norma, and son Michael had died before him. He was survived by his second wife Violet, daughter Margaret and sons Robert and Thomas. He was buried at the Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Mesa, Arizona.