Mary Klicka

In 1966 Klicka was decorated for Meritorious Civilian Service. In 1968 she was decorated for Exceptional Civilian Service. In 1969 she received the Woman of Achievement Award from the Massachusetts Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs. In 1970, she received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the Department of Defense. She was nominated twice for the Federal Woman’s Award, in 1965 and 1968. In 1996, she was inducted into the Army Soldier Systems Command Hall of Fame. She was a member of the American Dietetic Association, the National Council on Aging, and the Institute of Food Technologists.

Klicka served an internship at Michael Reese Hospital. She was a food technologist working for the United States Army beginning in 1951. She designed rations and their packaging for special contexts, including MREs and food for the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo manned space missions, at the Army’s Food Engineering Laboratory in Natick, Massachusetts. In 1958, she was assigned to the United Nations to work on rations issues of the UN’s Emergency Force in Gaza. Her research was published in Aerospace Medicine, Military Medicine, Journal of Food Science, Life Sciences and Space Research, Cereal Science Today, School Lunch Journal, and Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Klicka married William John Klicka in 1946, and had a son. She died in Waterbury, Connecticut in 2007, aged 86 years.

Mary Victoria Richardson was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the daughter of William Henry Richardson and Clara Myrtle Ferguson Richardson. Her father, a civil engineer, was from England, and her mother was born in North Dakota; the family moved to Kelso, Washington when she was a girl. She earned a bachelor’s degree in dietetics from the University of Washington in 1944, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Chicago in 1947.

Mary Victoria Richardson Klicka (April 30, 1921 – Aug. 26, 2007) was a Canadian-American registered dietitian and food technologist for the United States Army. She designed MREs and provisions for astronauts in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. In 1970, she received the Distinguished Civilian Service Award from the Department of Defense.