Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 3, No. 13 - April 1, 2021
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.....................10
Classifieds............................2
Entertainment......................2
Hawthorne............................3
Huber’s Hiccups..................3
Lawndale..............................4
Inglewood.............................5
Legals................................ 6-9
Pets......................................12
Weekend
Forecast
Friday
Sunny
68˚/52˚
Saturday
Sunny
66˚/53˚
Sunday
Partly
Cloudy
69˚/53˚
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Appreciation for Fire Station 170
In partnership with NORMS Restaurants, Crenshaw Imperial Plaza provided Fire Station 170 in Inglewood with a catered lunch. They recently helped deliver a healthy newborn baby near the center and
they wanted to spread the love and appreciation for the service they continue to provide to our community. Thank you, Norms and Station 170. Photo courtesy Crenshaw Imperial Plaza.
Space Force Guardian Gives
Insight to the South Bay 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,
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.
So, Chacon speaks with them, figures out which
processes are taking unnecessary time and hours,
and comes back to his team to develop an application
that can streamline the process. His
job makes everyone else’s job faster and easier.
During the pandemic, these interviews have
to be conducted via secure video calls, which
Chacon says has been the most difficult part of
his job. Typically, he’d get to talk to the Operators
in person, see where they work, and get a
building for them. However, post-pandemic, he
believes this innovation in communication will
ultimately aid Space Force, saying that being
able to call instead of travel with every update
can help with things like previewing prototypes.
Growing up in the South Bay and playing
soccer, Chacon is very familiar with the area.
In El Segundo, he says, the base has strong
ties with the local community. Everyone on
the base lives nearby and frequents El Segundo
parks, restaurants, and attractions often.
“As a military member, it’s easy to get stationed
in a new city and feel alone or isolated,”
he says, “I’ve never felt that here. And my
buddies who come from out of town definitely
love living here, too.” Since being stationed in
See Oscar Chacon, page 4
better understanding of what his team should be Oscar Chacon recently joined Space Force from the US Air Force.