DUGWAY, UT-Dr. Michael Glass, Alfred Keetch and Kitsy Keetch were nominated to the Dugway Hall of Fame during Winterfest. The purpose of this annual award is to formally recognize people who are true champions of Dugway Proving Ground.
Kitsy Keech was in attendance and received her award from the Dugway Commander, COL. Brian Hoffman. Dr. Glass was unable to attend the ceremony. The family of Alfred Keetch accepted his award on his behalf since he passed away in 2015.
Of the three nominees Alfred Keetch set the record for the most years served. Alfred who went by Jim had 47 years of civilian service dating back all the way to 1952 when he started at Dugway as a laborer. He retired in 1992 as the Chief of the Test Center's Test Conduct Division. During his service, Jim received numerous awards and held many positions. He performed tests on systems and equipment that benefited war-fighters throughout the world. He fostered a professional and positive attitude among his staff which led them to be highly productive. His technical expertise gave great credit to himself, his organization, his staff, and Dugway.
Kitsy had a long and storied career. With more than four decades of civilian service she didn’t quite serve as long as her husband Alfred Keech but she was only five years behind him. She started her career at Dugway in 1959 as a Clerk Typist. She spearheaded many efforts promoting women in the workforce and started a women's week in 1973 at the DPG theater. Kitsy was the first female president of the Tooele County Board of Education. She met with senators and congressional representatives lobbying for school funding. The funding she secured directly impacted the Dugway schools. Kitsy was also the first woman to serve as president of the Dugway Federal Credit Union Board.
Dr. Michael Glass started his tenure at Dugway as Program Manager, Test Director for Life Science Division in January of 1998. Dr. Glass had a drive to support the war-fighter and was constantly looking for new opportunities to bring workload to Dugway Proving Ground. Under his guidance, testing was expanded to include explosive testing and UAV testing. His efforts lead to the expansion of seven new test sites on Dugway which are still used today and provide unique capabilities that make DPG stand out as the definitive location to conduct advanced Chem/Bio development.
Dr. Glass laid the foundation for what the special programs division is today and ultimately changed the course for the workload in the west desert test center. He started the division with only six employees, but due to his leadership and vision, he grew the division to nearly 40 personnel. (The division now has nearly 80 total personnel.)
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