Van der Woude immigrated from Holland in 1962. He worked first at Caltech grinding rocks in the geology department. In 1963, Bruce C. Murray recognized him as a pilot (from Holland's air force) grinding rocks in the basement and put him to work one level deeper developing film and testing lenses for JPL's Lunar Lab for a few years. He worked his way to a position as NASA's media relations specialist in providing images, information, and interview scheduling to the press from Mariner 4's 21-image flyby of Mars in 1965, Voyagers' grand tours of the solar system, and Mars rovers in the 2000s. Show less «