William Roy Kerslake is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 Olympic heavy weight wrestler

Amateur wrestling

Amateur wrestling is the most widespread form of sport wrestling. There are two international wrestling styles performed in the Olympic Games under the supervision of FILA : Greco-Roman and freestyle. Freestyle is possibly derived from the English Lancashire style...

 and retired NASA

NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...

 engineer.

He won 15 national championships in a row in Freestyle and Greco-Roman

Greco-Roman wrestling

Greco-Roman wrestling is a style of wrestling that is practised worldwide. It was contested at the first modern Olympic Games in 1896 and has been included in every edition of the summer Olympics held since 1908. Two wrestlers are scored for their performance in three two-minute periods, which can...

. He won a gold medal in the 1955 Pan American Games

1955 Pan American Games

The 2nd Pan American Games opened on March 12, 1955 in the University Stadium in Mexico City, Mexico, in front of a capacity crowd of 100,000 spectators....

 and three times represented the United States in the Olympic Games, placing fifth, eighth and seventh from 1952 through 1960. His best result is that he ranked fifth at the freestyle wrestling event, heavyweight category, of the 1952 Summer Olympics

1952 Summer Olympics

The 1952 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XV Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event held in Helsinki, Finland in 1952. Helsinki had been earlier given the 1940 Summer Olympics, which were cancelled due to World War II...

. He was the first wrestler to be a member of three consecutive US Olympic wrestling teams. In the 1956 National Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) Greco-Roman Championship in Tulsa, Oklahoma, William R. Kerslake achieved a record setting fastest pin, taking only 4 seconds to pin his heavy weight opponent Ralph Bartleman. This feat was captured in the 1986 Guinness Book of World Records in the sports section under “Fastest Pin in National Tournament Competition”.

Throughout his wrestling career, and afterward, he was an aerospace research engineer for NASA. He was the co-inventor of the first ion thruster

Ion thruster

An ion thruster is a form of electric propulsion used for spacecraft propulsion that creates thrust by accelerating ions. Ion thrusters are categorized by how they accelerate the ions, using either electrostatic or electromagnetic force. Electrostatic ion thrusters use the Coulomb force and...

 for space propulsion and served as chairman of the technical committee of the AIAA

American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics

The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics is the professional society for the field of aerospace engineering. The AIAA was founded in 1963 from the merger of two earlier societies: the American Rocket Society , founded in 1930 as the American Interplanetary Society , and the Institute...

.