Harry Topley

RetroRockets

516 Sales 5 out of 5 stars

Las Cruces, NM

8

0 Following 8 Followers

My name is Harry Topley.I was born and raised in Las Cruces,New Mexico. My family has been here since the 1930s.Werner von Braun was a friend of my grandmother. When he was brought to Ft. Bliss at the end of the war he used to come up to her farm here in Las Cruces on weekends to visit her. She was one of the very few German speakers in the area. I currently live on this farm. My dad worked at White Sands for 33 years. My uncle was a former director of Physical Science Laboratory at New Mexico State University. I grew up around rocket heads!
I changed careers 35 years ago and went from electrical engineering to production jewelry manufacturing; I think it has something to do with being a border line pyromaniac as a kid. I loved to play with fire. I grew up and found a way to make a living doing just that! One of my favorite tools in the factory is my blast furnace ;^)
My company, Ruidoso Metal Works, has a loyal clientele that reaches from coast to coast and border to border. They make the original one of a kind piece and we do the mass production for them. I came up with a line of my own in 2007 and called them Retro-Rockets. Because of my fascination with rocketry, I wanted to capture the golden age of space exploration.