This morning my grandfather, Ellis E. Lapin died. He was 97 and had lived an amazing life. No way I can sum up his life today but as I have mentioned to people from time to time Im a third generation technologist in no small part because of him - his career included working at Rand Corporation in their early days and long careers at McDonnell Douglass and at Aerospace corporation. He was a space pioneer (a few years ago given a medal and public acknowledgement for his efforts by the National Reconnaissance Organization - a rare case of them talking publicly if cryptically about their work). He was also a carpenter and built a large part of the home he shared with his third wife in the hills of Larkspur. An avid reader Im sure my decade+ subscription to the New Yorker magazine was at least in some small measure inspired by his long subscription. Heres a link to a now declassified paper of his (it was published in 1975 in a then classified journal - thanks to the wonders of the Internet I found this in a quick search this afternoon). He was the guy with a briefcase locked to his wrist who would fly across the country from LA to a launch site (in Florida for example or to a meeting at the Pentagon) and even decades later much of what he worked on remained classified. www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB235/13.pdf
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 19:39:30 +0000
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