John P. St. John Memorial High School Class of 1930

(Oct. 30, 1912 — April 13, 2012)

Bill earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering at the University of Kansas. He went to Harvard University as a Gordon McKay scholar and earned a doctor of science in electrical engineering in 1937. He is known for several accomplishments in the engineering world and received many patents relating to vacuum tube oscillators and resonators. He was active in the early development of radar and high level security research and applications during World War II. Bill shared his love of electrical engineering as an educator at Illinois Institute of Technology, Georgia Institute of Technology and Stanford University. His accomplishments in this field earned him a Life Fellow designation from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in 1957. In the early 1960s, he co-founded Electromagnetic Technologies Co. He worked for the Stanford Research Institute from 1971 until retirement in 1986, and then worked part-time until the mid-1990s helping develop the NEXRAD project.