Short answers, pulled from the story.
Robert Rowe Gilruth was an American aerospace engineer who served as the first director of NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center, now called the Johnson Space Center. He led the Space Task Group tasked with putting an American in space before the Soviet Union and oversaw twenty-five crewed spaceflights from Mercury-Redstone 3 through Apollo 15.
Robert Gilruth was born on the 8th of October 1913, in Nashwauk, Minnesota, and moved to Duluth at age nine. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from the University of Minnesota in 1935 and a Master of Science in 1936.
NACA Report R755, published in 1941 and titled Requirements for Satisfactory Flying Qualities of an Airplane, was Gilruth's formal codification of handling standards for aircraft. Before this report, no standardized guidelines existed for pilots or designers on what made an airplane acceptably flyable.
When Kennedy announced in 1961 that America would land on the Moon before the end of the decade, Gilruth described himself as aghast and unsure the goal could be accomplished. He responded by advocating for the Gemini program as an intermediate step to learn more about operating in space before attempting a lunar landing.
Gilruth received the President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service from President Kennedy in 1962, the Collier Trophy in 1971 alongside the Apollo 15 crew, and inductions into the National Space Hall of Fame in 1969, the International Space Hall of Fame in 1976, and the National Aviation Hall of Fame in 1994.
Robert Gilruth has been portrayed in five productions: by William Mesnik in Apollo 11, by John Carroll Lynch in From the Earth to the Moon, by Ciarán Hinds in First Man, and by Patrick Fischler in The Right Stuff. In Hidden Figures, Kevin Costner's character Al Harrison was drawn mainly from Gilruth's life.