Ward, a U.S. Air Force veteran, got his start in aeronautical engineering designing the cockpit for the B-70 bomber. He worked in the space program from Apollo 1 through the early years of the International Space Station, retiring out of Boeing in Huntington Beach. He was in the Houston control room during the aborted Apollo 13 mission, which, he added, the movie captured pretty well.
Source: latimes.com – Los Angeles Times