February 15, 2021
Artist’s rendering of the Ingenuity copter and Perseverance rover on the surface of Mars. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.
Jim Willmore never talked too much about his job at Qualcomm, the San Diego-based mobile communications chip maker where he worked for 21 years, most recently as senior director of engineering.
So, it was a total surprise for his mother Betty Willmore and sister Tracy Punsel in 2018 when they learned something incredible about the Madison native and University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus (BSECE ‘84). Willmore’s name, along with those of his team members, was being inscribed on a small helicopter called Ingenuity being sent to Mars as part of NASA’s Mars 2020 Mission. “That’s all we knew about the project,” says Betty, “but we were very excited.”