The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 110, No. 13 - April 1, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.....................10
Classifieds............................4
Crossword/Sudoku.............4
Entertainment......................2
Legals........................... 6,9,10
Obituaries.............................2
Pets......................................11
Police Reports.....................3
Real Estate..................7-8,12
Sports....................................3
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
68˚/52˚
Saturday
Sunny
66˚/53˚
Sunday
Partly
Cloudy
69˚/53˚
We Welcome Back Our Bulldogs
El Segundo Middle School proudly welcomed back their Hybrid students on Thursday & Friday. Pictured is the admin team, counselors, office staff, and custodians who worked tirelessly to make it happen.
Photo courtesy El Segundo Middle School.
Space Force Guardian Gives
Insight to El Segundo Base
By Kiersten Vannest
Across from El Segundo’s quaint downtown
and tree-lined residential streets, a complement
of business complexes and aerospace companies
make up the eastern border. This is where the
Los Angeles Air Force Base makes its home
and where the United States Space Force in
part develops its technology.
One such developer is South Bay native First
Lieutenant Oscar Chacon. Chacon’s official title
for the United States Space Force (USSF) is
Product Manager of the Space Tasking Cycle
Portfolio Team. He works for Space and Missile
Systems Center (SMC) in El Segundo, under
the Cross Mission Ground Directorate. All that
to say: he builds apps and technology used by
the Space Force.
Chacon was born in Wilmington, California,
El Segundo Native Plant
Enthusiasts Foster Sustainability
By Duane Plank
As we enter year two of the pandemic
lockdown, people worldwide have had to
find ways to cope with the COVID-19
scourge as they have been virtually
closeted in their residences for more than
12 months.
Some have turned to binge-watching
their favorite shows from the safety of
their couch; others have developed an
avid interest in cooking and baking;
while some people have decided to dust
off a few of their unread books that have
been gathering dust on a bookshelf and
turning a few pages and others may have
visited the local liquor store or cannabis
dispensary more frequently.
And then there are the members of the
El Segundo Native Plant Society (ESNPS),
many of whom have used the enforced
extra “home-time” to increase their love
of all things plant-related.
Leonard Koike, an El Segundo resident
who, by trade, is a local aerospace engineer,
has lived here for the past ten years. He
said that he was drawn to settle in our
city, mainly because of his employment
site’s proximity.
Koike said that he bought a local home
seven years ago, and, about that time, the
county was offering rebates to homeowners
who would “pull-out” their lawn and
replace the green (or somewhat brown)
near Long Beach, and grew up in Palos
Verdes. As a kid, soccer was his passion, and
he dreamed he’d be a doctor, largely because
of his desire to help other people. When it
came time for college, he applied to the premed
track at a number of colleges and was
pursuing an athletic scholarship for soccer. It
was during this recruiting process that the Air
Force Academy reached out to him.
Being able to play soccer and ultimately serve
in the U.S. Air Force drew him to the school,
which he attended in Colorado until graduation
in 2018. Given the opportunity to fly, code,
and explore many careers before declaring
a major, Chacon went for a business degree.
“If you had asked me in high school, ‘where
will you be when you’re 24 years old?’ I would
not have been able to tell you that,” says Chacon.
Space Force is a relatively new wing of the
Department of Defense. It was established in
December of 2019. Its official mission reads:
The USSF is a military service that organizes,
trains, and equips space forces in order to
protect U.S. and allied interests in space and
to provide space capabilities to the joint force.
Members of Space Force are called Space
Guardians. While Chacon couldn’t give specifics
on what missions the USSF is working on
currently for security reasons, he was able to
explain who his work benefits and why.
Lt. Chacon’s team interviews Space Operators.
These are members who track and manage all
space assets (all U.S.-owned satellites, antennas,
missiles, rockets, etc.), as well as communications
in space and from ground-based radars.
Imagine the room filled with computers and
screens and maps you’ve seen in movies about
space. That’s what Space Operators do.
Sometimes, the technology used to track and
share data from all of these assets is not as advanced
as the technology on the assets themselves.
See Oscar Chacon, page 5 Oscar Chacon recently joined Space Force from the US Air Force.
See Plant Enthusiasts, page 6