eventually became an engineer and did stuff for Lockheed (he won't tell me what lol).

Drives ya nuts right? Like throw us a bone at least? LOL
I have an uncle-in-law who's retired & in his 70s or 80s, and he's lived all over the world in places it's kind of odd for Americans to live for work. I asked about that, & the most I could find out from anyone is that he was some kind of engineer, but nobody knows exactly who he worked for or what he's done his whole life.

It drives me crazy.
My step-father was a scientist physicist who worked on the a-bomb, Manhattan Project. He died 2-1/2 years ago at the age of 87. And at the end, he was on a heart medication that made him confused at times, and he was concerned that the medication & his senility was going to make him vulnerable to divulging secrets.

The poor guy! How awful is that? I had asked him about his work on the atomic bomb years ago, and this kind gentle man seemed very stern in refusing to say much of anything!! Like I was highly out of line to ask such things! lol I thought surely so many years later he could say SOMETHING. You'd think a lot would've been declassified by now.
My grandfathers, on the other hand, told me LOADS about their work. And that was quite exciting and very very awful.
My paternal grandfather, who died when I was 7, worked in the steel mills in Pittsburgh & survived being burned in a fire, and then went to work in the coal mines of northeastern Pennsylvania. I still remember sitting on a bench with him in the back yard (he lived next door to us), and him telling me that I should have great respect for my OTHER grandfather who worked in the mines from age 12. Because my paternal grandfather at least didn't do the dangerous work until he was 19 or 20 (that's when he immigrated to the U.S. with his brother).
I really highly recommend finding out as much as you can from your elder family members while they still remember things well!! There's so many things that later in life I became curious about, and it was too late to get any specific information, because nobody really knows, and now half of my uncles & aunts are dead as well, as well as both my father & step-father.
I have no clue about my paternal grandfather's family in the Old Country, even though in the early 70s, he went back to visit them (for the first & only time).
I had exchanged some letters with a cousin of my maternal grandmother some years ago. And apparently she had the typical Polish family - one son in the army, and one son became a priest.