Laurel van der Wal was a mechanical and aeronautical engineer who made key contributions to the research of both human space flight and more earthbound transportation challenges. She was born to Lillian and Richard van der Wal in San Francisco on September 22, 1924. Laurel van der Wal was only 15 when she graduated from high school in the Golden Gate City. Over the next few years, she worked in a variety of jobs that included model; art instructor; showgirl; and deputy sheriff. A transportation-oriented position that she had during this stage of her life was that of railroad switch tower operator.
Van der Wal became interested in aviation and aspired to earn a pilot license during World War II. While she did not achieve this goal, she did work as an aircraft mechanic at Hamilton Field (a U.S. Army Air Forces base in the San Francisco Bay Area) during that global conflict. Van der Wal subsequently studied mechanical engineering at the University of California (UCLA), Berkeley, graduating from there in 1949 with a bachelor science degree. With financial assistance from a National Research Council fellowship, Van der Wal went on to pursue her graduate studies in aeronautics at both UCLA, Berkeley, and the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden.
During the 1950s, van der Wal’s engineering career included serving as a laboratory research analyst at Douglas Aircraft Company. She also worked at Reaction Motors, Inc., where she focused on priorities such as fuel-tank pressurization and the company’s turbopump rocket systems. In addition, van der Wal worked for the Rheem Manufacturing Company as a design engineer. Her assignments at the company ultimately entailed analyzing all phases of aerodynamics with respect to aircraft, drones and missiles.
Van der Wal was employed as well during this decade at Ramo-Wooldridge Corporation, where she was extensively involved in the design of early advanced missile and space-probe systems. After this corporation merged with Thompson Products in 1958 to form Thompson Ramo Wooldridge, Inc., van der Wal worked in the company’s division known as Space Technologies Laboratories. In his role, she continued her research into bioastronautics – a specialty area encompassing the biological and medical components of human space flight – and in particular the impacts of space on mammals.
Van der Wal eventually received widespread acclaim for her contributions to space travel. The Los Angeles Times, for example, named her “1960 Woman of the Year in Science.” The following year, the Society of Women Engineers presented van der Wal with its Achievement Award.
Starting in 1961, van der Wal served on the Los Angeles Board of Airport Commissioners. She remained on the board until 1967. Van der Wal’s other professional pursuits included working for the RAND Corporation, where she wrote several research reports in which she set forth proposals for innovative, large-scale transportation networks here on Earth. “When she talks transportation, people listen,” noted reporter Tom Emch in a 1970 San Francisco Examiner profile of van der Wal. “According to her, ‘There is not one domestic problem that can’t be eased by imaginative transportation systems.’”
Van der Wal died on August 13, 2009, in Santa Monica, California. She was 84. “Be aware of and interested in many things,” van der Wal stated when offering advice to teenagers as part of an interview published in a 1962 edition of the Pennsylvania-based Sunday News. “Go all out. Work hard at what you like so you can develop skill at it . . . Concentrate on what’s important.”
Photo Credit: Public Domain
For more information on Laurel van der Wal, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_van_der_Wal
Transportation History 
Compelling
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