"There are a lot of names you can remember from the last 50 years or so in history, but few individuals have had more impact on American security and technology prowess than Ramo. He's really one of the giants."

Ramo asked the architect to lay out the buildings to offer every engineer a window with views of gardens and sculptures so they could "think up big things." Spacecraft manufacturing or laboratory work would take place in the center of the buildings, with offices facing out.

Do you see gardens and sculptures outside your office?

That vision stood in stark contrast to the rest of the aerospace industry, which typically seated engineers side by side at drafting tables in cavernous, windowless hangars.

"I wanted it to be like a campus because that's where all the best minds were," Ramo said as he toured the facility recently. "I wanted them to look forward to coming to work."

...

Operating in secrecy, Ramo and Wooldridge moved the ICBM operations to a former Catholic church in Inglewood, where the pair had to pull out the pews and the urinals in the bathrooms to make room for their research.

Now that's old school.