This page is a memoriam to Terry Savage, science-fiction writer and founder of the Los Angeles Chapter of the L-5 Society. Tributes will be added as they come in, but the first is from Howard Gluckman, a co-founder.

From Howard Gluckman:

It was late summer in 1977, and I had thoughts of forming a Southern California chapter of the L-5 Society. Before I had made any progress, I got a mailing (snail-mail back then) from someone named Terry Savage who was looking to do the same thing.  Some 15-20 people gathered in his Redondo Beach townhouse.  As we debated various names, it was David Yoel who came up with Organization for the Advancement of Space Industrialization and Settlement – OASIS.

I don’t remember the exact timing – it could have been a later meeting – but Terry was elected President, and I was elected Vice President. We worked closely and well in those early days.  It turns out Terry’s and my birthday were only a day apart – and if I remember correctly, we were born the same year. We had taken different paths to get to where we were – I was still looking for my first professional job (which OASIS would help me get), but Terry was already managing a semiconductor lab at TRW. There’s no question that I learned organizational and leadership skills from observing Terry in action. I also learned some of his unique swearing phrases and still use some to this day.

Over the years as we spent time together, we shared a lot of activities that grew from our OASIS interests. We went out to the desert numerous times to launch model rockets, which got bigger and more elaborate as time went on. We’d spend the hours driving up to El Mirage or Lucerne Dry Lake in Behemoth – Terry’s Mercury Grand Marquis.  Everything that Terry had eventually got a name, it seemed.

For a few years in the 80s, we were partners with Terry and others in a cabin up at Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains. Several times, we flew up there in his Cessna and had a few memorable adventures. Once in the winter, we landed after a big snowstorm covered everything but the runway. Terry made a wrong turn into an unplowed taxiway, and I had to get out and lift the wing over another plane’s propeller to get us by.  Another time, not long after Terry had gotten his instrument rating, we took off in clear skies from Big Bear, but the LA Basin was socked in. As he went to file an instrument flight plan in the air, he discovered that his transponder wasn’t working. We were guided in by ATC flying blind through the LAX corridor to land at Hawthorne. It was an exciting day!

After we moved from LA to Colorado, Terry and I stayed in touch – mostly through his email list, but as happens in life we sort of drifted apart. However, the few times we reconnected it was like nothing had ever changed. He was a very large influence in my life, and I will not forget him.