The claimed connection to Schmoll is technically coherent.
The documented Rod Pack project shows Schmoll working with:
- personnel-harness geometry;
- unusual load paths;
- rapid attachment;
- human-body extraction and opening loads;
- parachute deployment;
- contingency planning; and
- high-risk test or stunt operations.
The YANKEE system likewise depended on transmitting a rocket’s extraction force through a personnel or parachute harness while managing human-body orientation and subsequent parachute deployment.
A parachute-equipment specialist with Schmoll’s documented capabilities would therefore make sense in that environment.
Technical compatibility, however, is only circumstantial evidence and does not establish that he participated in the program.