File:Goddard Space Flight Center Dedication Ceremony - GPN-2002-000114.jpg

English: By March 16, 1961, enough work had been completed to formally dedicate the new NASA research center named in honor of America's great rocket innovator, Robert H. Goddard. Before the dedication ceremony actually took place, though, Goddard's always innovative employees were once again put to the test. A week before the event, the Secret Service told Goddard's Director of Administration, Mike Vaccaro, that he had to install a fence because President Kennedy might attend the dedication, and the campus was not secure. Although it rained for a week, Vaccaro found a contractor who worked 24 hours a day in the rain and mud cutting down trees and installing a chain link fence. But Vaccaro's troubles did not end there. Someone then noticed the Center did not have a flagpole. Vaccaro had three days to find one and still comply with government procurement regulations. An employee located a flagpole at a school that was closing down, and Vaccaro wrote a specification that described the pole so precisely that only the school could fit the bill. Workers moved the flagpole to the entrance gate?where it still stands today.