This month we profile our volunteer with the most longevity at Patriots Point...Lloyd Conard has been greeting visitors and conducting tours for our guests since January 1995.
A native of Abington, Pennsylvania, he has always had a fascination with naval aviation and as a young boy used to sit outside the fence of the Johnsville Naval Air Station (former site of the Brewster Aircraft Company taken over by the Navy in 1944) now the Naval Air Warfare Test Center at Warminster and watch Hellcats and Corsairs take off and land.
After graduating from Abington High School in 1951, Lloyd worked for the telephone company until he was drafted by the United States Army in 1953. After basic training he was sent to the largest military facility in the United States, the White Sands Proving Grounds (now known as the White Sands Missile Range) in New Mexico, where the first atomic bomb was exploded and many sophisticated weapons systems have been and are still been developed. Lloyd worked in the White Sands range control plotting contacts onto a plotting board from raw radar returns.
With his Army service and experience, he gained employment with the IBM corporation and worked there for 37 years, until retiring and moving to the Lowcountry of South Carolina. If you are ever here on Friday afternoons, it is more than likely that Lloyd will be at the information desk offering a warm greeting and a chance of a superb tour given by a very knowledgeable gentleman.