This an edited transcript of an oral history interview of Donald A. Hicks conducted by Layne Karafantis. Dr. Donald A. “Don” Hicks was born in Ely, Nevada in 1925. He showed an early aptitude for the maths and sciences, and he served in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He began attending the University of California, Berkeley while he was stationed at the Oakland Army Base. He continued his studies at Berkeley and earned his PhD in 1956, during which time he was trained to work on nuclear weapons as part of the Chemical Corps. He also worked in a cyclotron laboratory, developing ways to create Uranium-235. Hicks left Berkeley to head the Pilotless Aircraft Division at Boeing in Seattle. His teams worked on the Bomarc surface-to-air missile and the Minuteman ICBM. While heading the Applied Physics section of Boeing’s Aerospace Group, he was involved in the discovery of electromagnetic pulse [EMP]. Hicks moved to southern California in 1961 to serve as Vice President of Engineering for Northrop’s Ventura Division. He formed the Applied Research department in Northrop’s Nortronics Division, which became Northrop Research and Technology Center. He was promoted to Corporate Vice President of Research and Technology in 1970. Hicks was instrumental in leading the group that authored the Advanced Research and Development Document, which became known as the Second Defense Initiative. Meanwhile, he contributed his expertise to Northrop’s development of the stealthy B-2 bomber. In 1973, Hicks formed the Northrop Analysis Center in DC, which continues to present the Pentagon with aerospace trends and long-range issues. Hicks became Senior Vice President of Marketing and Technology at Northrop in 1974, and he helped to bolster the company’s image in the wake of a company fiasco involving campaign contributions. He attempted to avert the company’s commitment to the F-20 program, but ultimately retired from Northrop at 60 so that he could serve as the Under Secretary of Defense for Research & Engineering (USDRE) in Washington, DC. As USDRE, among numerous tactical decisions, Hicks required that the F-22 be stealthy, which turned out to be a heralded decision. He soon left to form Hicks and Associates, which held offices at the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), where he had been on the Board since the early 1980s. Hicks and Associates produced studies for corporations and was eventually bought by SAIC in 1993. Hicks chaired a Defense Science Board team that authored the Defense National Report in 1999, a seminal work on globalization and security studies. A detailed biography is appended to his transcript. [Object file name], Aerospace Oral History Project, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
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