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laWreNce r. glosTeN
1918–2010
elected in 1990
“For innovative naval architectural and marine engineering solutions to
problems of ocean transport and ocean research.”
By J. r. PaUlliNg
laWreNce r. glosTeN, founder and president, The
glosten associates, died february 22, 2010, in Bainbridge
island, Washington. larry was born in New york city on
august 5, 1918. His father was a retired rear admiral, having
started as a merchant marine officer and later serving in the
U.s. Navy in command of troop ships. larry’s interest in
ships started at an early age. He was an avid reader of great
sea literature as well as a builder of model ships. at an early
age he had heard of the Webb institute of Naval architecture,
which at that time was located in the Bronx, and he decided
that it was where he wanted to study. after graduation from
high school he took the competitive examination for Webb,
was admitted, and received his B.s. degree in 1940.
larry had joined the Naval reserve as a student at Webb
and went on active duty two months after graduation. His first
assignment was to the New york Naval shipyard, but after only
a few months he was sent to the Pearl Harbor Naval shipyard
where he served as a docking officer and ship superintendent.
He was at Pearl Harbor at the time of the Japanese attack
on december 7, 1941, and in May 1942 was in charge of dry
docking the USS Yorktown, which had been damaged in the
Battle of the coral sea. in two days’ time the yard completed
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144 MeMorial TriBUTes
repairs initially estimated to require 90 days.1 This enabled
Yorktown to play a significant role in the Battle of Midway,
an action that is regarded as the turning point in the Pacific
war. in 1943 he was sent to the U.s. Navy’s Bureau of ships
Preliminary design division in Washington, d.c., and later
evaluated damage to target ships as an observer to the Bikini
atom bomb tests. He left active duty in 1946 but continued
to serve in the U.s. Navy reserve, retiring with the rank of
captain in 1978.
Upon moving to seattle in 1953, glosten entered a
partnership with Phillip spaulding and Hart livingston.
His own consulting practice was established in 1958 as l. r.
Glosten, Naval Architect & Marine Engineer. Much of his early
work involved the design of tugs and barges for operation at
sea and in river systems as widely separated as the columbia,
the yukon, and the Nile. He designed barges to transport bulk
cargo, liquid cargo, containers, and large-diameter pipes for the
alyeska pipeline. one of the barge innovations in which he was
involved was the “dry tow” of very large floating structures,
such as offshore drilling platforms. in these operations a
barge was submerged by flooding internal compartments, the
floating cargo was brought over it, and the barge was pumped
dry, lifting the cargo out of the water for transport. another
unusual submersible barge design was the Hughes mining
barge, part of a central intelligence agency scheme intended
to raise a sunken cold War–era russian submarine. The
glosten organization designed a number of tugs for both river
and sea-going service, including small shallow draft vessels
for Northern alaska, columbia river towboats, ocean towing
vessels, harbor assist, and escort tugs.
Glosten invented the “Sea Link” articulated tow system by
means of which a barge could be pushed ahead of a tug, a
more efficient system than the conventional means of towing
behind on a long towline. sea link provided a degree of
motion flexibility and relief from wave-induced loads between
tug and barge while still maintaining directional control of
samuel eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, vol. 4,
1
p. 81 (New york: little, Brown, 1949).
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laWreNce r. glosTeN
the barge. another, totally different, articulated structure is
the floating bridge, consisting of a number of interconnected
floating modules, anchored in place to support a roadway
crossing a body of water. glosten performed analyses of the
dynamic response to short crested waves of several of the
floating bridges in the Seattle–Puget Sound area after one
of them, the Hood canal Bridge, was heavily damaged by a
severe winter storm in 1979.
in the early 1960s glosten was brought in by the gunderson
shipyard in Portland, oregon, to consult on and prepare
construction plans for a unique oceanographic research
platform being constructed for the scripps institution of
oceanography. FLIP (floating instrument Platform) is a
slender spar structure intended to float with its axis vertical
when conducting research in the ocean. it consists of two
coaxial cylindrical sections, joined end to end by a conical
tapered section, having the upper section of smaller diameter
than the lower. The total length of FLIP is about 355 feet and,
when floating vertically, it has a draft of about 300 feet. By
evacuating ballast water from internal tanks, it can rotate (flip)
to a horizontal attitude for towing. The ratio of diameters of
upper and lower sections is chosen so as to minimize the motion
response of FLIP to the ocean waves, and this results in a very
stable platform from which to conduct scientific measurements
even in high-sea states. FLIP marked the beginning of a long
and mutually beneficial relationship between the Glosten
organization and scripps.
glosten designed one other scripps research platform
named ORB, a research ship, Alpha Helix, and was also involved
in the upkeep and major refits of other ships of the Scripps
fleet. His work for Scripps expanded to other oceanographic
research organizations, including Woods Hole, the University
of Washington, the University of alaska, and the Monterey
Bay aquarium research institute.
one of the scripps scientists that glosten worked with
once observed, “The one episode that I do recall from about
that time—i couldn’t put an exact date on it—had to do with
a discussion about the fundamental necessity for seaworthy
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design, and a caution not to zoom off in the direction of
maximizing some other factor without due regard to possible
impact on this fundamental.”
an important part of glosten’s work was marine risk
analysis and included such diverse considerations as dynamic
loads and sea fastenings for extraordinary-sized deck cargo, the
transportation by barge of radioactive materials, and the safe
passage of tankers in restricted waters. an early application
began in 1970 with the first Arctic Sea Lift in support of the
alaskan North slope and the alyeska pipeline. Barges were
used to transport a variety of materials to the North slope,
ranging from thin-walled pipe to large preconstructed
industrial modules, weighing up to 3,000 tons each and
standing up to 150 feet high. it was necessary to determine
the randomly varying loads and sea-fastening requirements
to secure such cargoes during the voyage from the american
West coast through the stormy gulf of alaska to the North
slope. Much fundamental research on the hydrodynamics and
probabilistic nature of ship motions in waves had taken place
in the 1950s and 1960s, and Glosten was among the first to
apply these analytical methods to such barge transportation
problems.
glosten’s leadership in barge transportation technology and
risk analysis led naturally into involvement in the developing
field of barge transport of radioactive materials where he
was involved in risk analysis, cargo engineering, operations
planning, and design. The pioneering transportation of the
decommissioned steam generator from the reactor in surrey,
Virginia, to Hanford, Washington, in 1980 has become a
landmark referred to by all subsequent similar projects. Under
glosten’s direction, the safe passage of oil tankers in restricted
waters was also studied following the Exxon Valdez grounding
and subsequent oil spill. The studies paid particular attention
to the efficacy of escort tug intervention following propulsion
or steering failures.
Throughout his career, larry glosten established a personal
reputation for honesty, integrity, and adherence to the highest
ethical standards that was well known in the industry.
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He was a strong supporter of the education and professional
development of younger engineers. Within his firm he
encouraged broad-minded inquiry, technical innovation, and
publication in the technical literature.
in recent years, larry continued to participate actively in the
affairs of the firm, even after completing a carefully planned
transition of ownership and operation to the next generation
of engineers. Other members of the firm have begun to make
their own marks on the profession, but these achievements,
too, can be properly credited to larry because of the creative
environment in which they flourish.
larry was always a strong supporter of his professional
society, the society of Naval architects and Marine engineers,
and his alma mater, the Webb institute of Naval architecture.
for many years he was a guest lecturer and advisor to Webb,
and in 1990 the Webb alumni association recognized his
service to his profession and his alma mater with the William
selkirk owen award. in 1997, Webb further recognized his
achievements with an honorary doctor of science degree.
larry was a life fellow of the society of Naval architects
and Marine engineers, where he participated in the technical,
educational, and licensing committees of the society. The
society awarded him its david W. Taylor Medal, the highest
award, for notable achievement in naval architecture in 1988.
He was elected to the National academy of engineering in
1990, where he served as a resource on issues affecting the
marine community.
larry served as chairman of the board of The glosten
associates through 2000. after retirement, he and his wife,
Lois Peterson “Pete” Glosten, continued to host the firm’s
annual picnic at their home on Bainbridge island to meet the
newest glosten associates.
An article that he wrote in 1995 describing the first 10 years of
The glosten associates contained the following characteristic
observation:
“The SEA-LINK episode, with its trials, disappointments
and successes, was a difficult experience that I value
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highly and would not like to have missed. it brought
worldwide exposure to our organization and gave us
invaluable experience in the engineering business. We
earned more friends than money, but that is not an
unsatisfactory outcome.”
Holly farming was a much less well-known glosten
venture. it, too, generated experience and earned more
friends than money but not much worldwide exposure.
approximately contemporaneous to the establishment of The
glosten associates, larry and Pete purchased seven acres of
land on Bainbridge island, and, with the help of son larry
Jr., glosten planted 700 holly trees. Nominally, this venture
known as Island Holly was part of a diversification strategy:
The viability of one enterprise would be unlikely to affect the
profitability of the other.
Most weekends found larry and his son working on the
holly farm—tending the holly trees, clearing new acreage, and
planting more evergreens to generate future forests. larry Jr.
considers this experience invaluable both for the skills learned
and the motivation it provided to obtain higher education. in
fact, he did escape to college, leaving the holly chores to sisters
Barbara and Beth. They received other benefits from the farm,
as it became a place for their horses to graze. eventually, island
Holly had a small horse barn.
The holly trees and horses flourished (as did The Glosten
associates), though it must be said that island Holly as a
business did not. This was of little concern to larry, since the
point was the experience and the joy he got from the land.
after Barbara and Beth left for college, Pete and larry built
their new home among the holly trees. larry could often be
found in his wood shop, and in retirement he returned to the
craft of model ship building.
larry glosten is survived by his son, lawrence r. glosten,
Jr., of New york city; daughters Barbara radovich of san luis
obispo, california, and Beth glosten of redmond, Washington;
and three grandchildren. larry’s wife of almost 64 years, lois
Ann “Pete” Glosten, died on June 15, 2010.
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