By: Elyse Wilk

Although having a Hollywood A list actor and accomplished singer as a son, Judith’s true claim to fame is her amazing strength, passion, and hard work. She is a real inspiration and role model to women.

There was a time when a woman did the same job as a man, but she was paid half as much, and it was legal. Near the end of the 50’s the USA was way behind in the space race. Basic civil rights were nonexistent, and the women’s movement had barely achieved a single advancement since the right to vote in 1920. The only major exception was during World War II when out of dire necessity women picked up the slack, and this is what helped America win the war. The changes to our society that we take for granted today are the result of dedicated people who made it happen. Judith Love Cohen is one of those individuals.

Her fascinating story begins at the birth of the space age which was the start of a new era in forward thinking.
Judith is originally from Brooklyn, NY. While growing up, she and her late sister played complex games with their father which further developed their math skills and taught them how solve problems. She credits her father’s encouragement for her becoming an engineer. As the only female student in her advanced math class, she knew from an early age she was different. The teacher of that class was a woman and because of this Judith thought that it meant her destiny was to become a math teacher also. Her high school advisor recommended she study home economics and discouraged her from advancing herself academically. Despite this and having been shut out of the college preparatory classes, she won the school’s scholarship anyway.

It was her first employer who recognized her for her abilities and saw past her gender. North American Aviation now Boeing, helped her finish her undergraduate degree at USC. During that time, she married and gave birth to 3 children.  One of her fellow associates assumed she did not have time for a private life and goaded her by asking why she didn’t want to get married, have a family and stay home. She shared with him that she already had done all of those things, but she loved being an engineer.

Judith left that company and went to work for TRW now Northrop-Grumman. They also recognized her potential and paid for her master’s degree in engineering at USC.  This took place during the early days of the Apollo missions. That company won NASA’s contract to design and build the LEM’s descent engines (Lunar Excursion Module). The LEM is the craft that we think of as what actually landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, and then rendezvoused with the orbiting spacecraft for the return trip to Earth.

Judith worked on the design of its abort guidance system, and if all else failed her system was the mission’s safety net. Apollo missions 12 and 13 used the system; without it the missions would have been disastrous.  The backup engines of the abort guidance system on the LEM was what steered the failed Apollo 13 mission home and saved the lives of James Lovell and his crew.

Judith sat elbow to elbow with her “fellow” co-workers; she had to work longer, harder, and smarter to keep the same pace, and overcome great obstacles.  She clarified, “It was simple to me; engineers like to figure things out and solve problems.”

There was a stigma attached to whatever she did; imagine her workplace was akin to how a woman feels when she walks into a giant sized men’s room by accident. She managed well within its confines and chuckled while she reminisced about the photo of the Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir that she placed conspicuously on the wall in her office, and how she eventually taped a centerfold from Playgirl to her door.

The men around her learned that she could do anything they could do, but she could make babies as well. In the mid-sixties she made it possible for women to write their own proposals and to run their departments.  Thinking about this made her chuckle again, as she revealed how it also helped to turn things on their side. NASA has historically not been a thriving environment for women. Sally Ride was America’s first female astronaut to ever go on a mission. Sadly, she followed far behind her Russian predecessor, the cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova who beat her into space by twenty years. Despite this, working for the space program was where Judith flourished. She and a handful of her female coworkers helped shape what the program is today. They opened the doors for women who wish to work in the fields of math and science.

She had three children with her first husband. Her oldest son Neil is an engineer like her, her son Howard passed away several years ago. His prolonged illness is what brought the different factions of the family together and inspired Judith to write and produce a play about the experience. Her daughter Rachael is the mother of an energetic five year old who Judith adores. Judith’s youngest child from her marriage to Tom Black is the actor and musician, Jack Black.

Judith explained how everything was different for her with him because by the time he was born she was older and responsible for her department.  After devoting almost every minute of her professional life up to that point to landing a man on the moon, she missed the celebration at work and watched it from home. This mishap was during the summer of 69’ because her youngest son was born two weeks after the historic moment took place, while Judith was on maternity leave.

She expressed how all of her children are talented and the one thing they share is their gift for music. Neil plays folk music with his wife Robyn, Rachael is an accomplished jazz saxophonist and Jack is the lead vocalist and guitarist in the band Tenacious D.

Judith’s youngest child was creative and did not fit into the formalized scholastic system of the public schools. She found the right place for him and sent him to the Poseidon School. Judith has continued her long friendship with Joanne Saliba, the school’s director, and is still involved with their fundraising efforts. One of his teachers at Poseidon, Debbie Devine, saw his dramatic talents and suggested he move to the Crossroads School as a Theater Arts major where he did very well.

After the Apollo missions ended, Judith worked on the Hubble Space Telescope, and now she is retired from engineering. She and her husband David Katz founded Cascade Pass. It is a publishing company devoted to encouraging young girls to go into fields traditionally held by men. One of their latest books, “The Women of Apollo”, by Robyn Friend is about the remarkable women who helped put the first man on the moon. The stories are about Judith and her co-workers, Ann Dickson, Ann Maybury and Bobbie Johnson.

Judith Love Cohen is one of the world’s finest examples of women who made the most out of her life and lived her passion.  She didn’t make excuses as to why she could not do what she wanted to do, and to her credit she is working hard at her publishing company to introduce ideas to young readers that will help to make our world a better place.

A must read for young people is any book from the Cascade Pass book series, You Can Be A Woman…; Engineer, Animator, Oceanographer, Entomologist, Meteorologist, Movie Maker, Soccer Player, Basketball Player, Astronomer etc. There are also fantastic resources available at the website for after school activities that are perfect for Girl Scouts, extended daycare programs and school lesson plans. Not all of the books are gender biased and actually it makes sense for boys to read these books as much as girls. Especially important to read are; Solar Power, Clean Sky and The Clean City books because they introduce environmental consciousness to children at a young age.

Cascade Pass is on the web at www.cascadepass.com.