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J O S E P H E . RO W E
1927–2002
Elected in 1977
“For contributions to the theory and design of high-power
microwave electron tubes and solid-state microwave devices.”
BY GEORGE HADDAD AND JONATHAN ROWE
J OSEPH E. ROWE, a leading pioneer in the development of
microwave electron tube and solid state device technologies,
and former vice president and chief scientist at Harris
Corporation, Gould Corporation, and Pittsburgh Plate
Glass, as well as former provost and dean of engineering at
Case Western Reserve University and chair of electrical and
computer engineering at the University of Michigan, died on
October 23, 2002, at the age of 75.
Joe was born in Detroit on June 4, 1927, the son of an auto
worker who emigrated from Cornwall, England, in 1920.
Immediately upon graduation from high school, Joe enlisted in
the U.S. Marine Corps and served in active combat in the Pacific
theater. When his tour of duty ended in December 1946, Joe
came home to study electrical engineering at the University of
Michigan on the G.I. Bill. He always credited the Marine Corps
with not only paying for his education but, more importantly,
for teaching him the tough-minded discipline and unflagging
work ethic that served him so well in his professional career.
For the rest of his life, in all the best ways, Joe Rowe never
stopped being a Marine.
Joe received his B.S.E. in electrical engineering and
mathematics in 1951. In the summer of 1950 he married his
college sweetheart, Anne Prine Rowe. Anne later distinguished
273
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274 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
herself as a University of Michigan metallurgical engineer
(B.S.E., 1950; Ph.D., 1970), and she and Joe became the first
couple to each receive distinguished engineering alumni
awards from their alma mater. Joe and Anne were married
52 years. Their son, Jonathan, was born in 1954 and their
daughter, Carol, in 1956.
Joe received his M.S.E.E. and Ph.D. in electrical engineering
also from University of Michigan in 1952 and 1955 respectively,
and promptly joined the university’s engineering faculty—thus
began the “academic phase” of his career. While at Michigan,
Joe literally “wrote the book” on microwave electron tube
devices and won the university’s prestigious Distinguished
Faculty Achievement Award in 1970 for his outstanding
research and teaching and for mentoring scores of fine
engineers. He served as director of the Electron Physics
Laboratory from 1958 to 1968, where he managed and
developed research programs in microwave electron tube
devices, gaseous plasmas, and semiconductors. He was
appointed chair of electrical and computer engineering in 1968
and served in that position until he left the university in 1974.
Joe was not only a first-rate scientist who made very
significant technical contributions, he was also a great
visionary and an astute businessman. He was a major pioneer
in the area of microwave devices and, in particular, vacuum
tube devices, such as traveling wave tubes and magnetrons,
which are still in wide use today in many applications,
including high-power communication and radar systems as
well as microwave ovens. He wrote a book in 1965, Nonlinear
Electron Wave Interaction Phenomena (New York: Academic
Press), that to this day is a standard in the field.
Joe was an excellent researcher who published many
seminal papers and supervised many Ph.D. students who went
on to occupy leadership positions in academia and industry.
After spending approximately 20 years on the faculty of the
University of Michigan, serving as director of the Electron
Physics Laboratory and chair of the department, he accepted
the position of dean of engineering at Case Western Reserve
University. He then went on to industry, where he held
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J O S E P H E . RO W E 275
several important positions as vice president at Harris, Gould,
Pittsburgh Plate Glass, and the Dayton Research Institute.
Under Joe’s leadership, the Electron Physics Laboratory
was one of the premier laboratories on campus and was the
forerunner of the present Solid Sate Electronics Laboratory.
During his years at Michigan, he also served as a consultant to
several major industries and government laboratories.
Joe was truly an accomplished individual who made an
impact during his long and distinguished career. In recognition
of his accomplishments, he was elected a fellow of the Institute
of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which is the
highest honor for an electrical engineer. He was also elected a
member of the National Academy of Engineering, which is the
highest honor for any engineer. He served on many national
committees, such as the Army Science Board and the Advisory
Group on Electron Devices for the U.S. Department of Defense.
He also chaired many conferences and symposia and provided
excellent professional service to IEEE, the National Academy
of Engineering, and other organizations.
In 1974, Joe became dean of engineering at Case Western,
and soon thereafter was appointed provost. He very much
enjoyed his time there, but in 1980 the Harris Corporation
made him an offer he could not refuse—Harris bought Joe’s
“Shared Applications” business, which he had started while
at Michigan to help in the design of electron tube devices, and,
more importantly, gave Joe the opportunity to test his talents
in the competitive world of private industry. This began the
private-sector phase of Joe Rowe’s career.
From 1980 to 1993, Joe worked as vice president and chief
scientist, first at Harris in Melbourne, Florida, next at Gould
Corporation in Chicago, and finally at Pittsburgh Plate Glass
in Pittsburgh. For these three Fortune 500 companies, Joe was
the perfect hire because he was able to apply his vast detailed
academic expertise to their practical commercial engineering
problems. For Joe, at a personal level, all three private industry
jobs were immensely satisfying because they allowed him
to engage fully both sides of his personality—the creative
academic side and the hard-headed practical Marine side.
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276 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
By way of one modest example, the next time you are in
your car, and you think about how well your windshield keeps
the heat out, compared to, say, your 1964 Dodge or even your
1985 Chevy, thank Joe Rowe because in the later stages of his
career, Joe did a lot of truly outstanding work for Pittsburgh
Plate Glass on glass and light refraction issues.
In 1993, Joe retired from the company, but retirement for
him did not mean hitting golf balls in Florida. Instead, he
accepted the position of director of the University of Dayton’s
Research Institute—what most people would regard as a full-
time job, but for Joe, at age 66, it was a reduced schedule that
afforded him the chance to get back to his first love: mentoring
young engineers, as he had done a generation earlier at the
University of Michigan.
Although Joe Rowe officially departed the University of
Michigan in 1974, he never really left. He served in leadership
roles on several fund-raising campaigns in the 1980s and
1990s. Later, in 2002, he and Anne endowed a faculty chair
in electrical engineering and computer science (EECS) at the
University of Michigan’s Engineering College. Joe was also the
first recipient of the EECS department’s Distinguished Alumni
Award. Perhaps most revealingly, official university records
disclosed that, of the 324 home football games that Michigan
played between 1946 and 2000, Joe attended approximately
300—despite living in Cleveland, Florida, Chicago, Pittsburgh,
and Dayton during almost half of those years. Right to the
end, Joe Rowe was a Michigan man, through and through. He
was a very loyal alumnus and helped the department and the
college on many occasions, particularly as a member of the
national advisory committees for both and in development
activities for the college. He was the first chair of the EECS
Advisory Committee when it was established in 1986.
With all of Joe’s accomplishments and superb professional
career, he was always the most proud of his family and their
accomplishments and often spoke about them. In particular,
he was excited and pleased when Anne decided to enroll in
the graduate program in chemistry and receive her Ph.D.
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J O S E P H E . RO W E 277
To Joe’s great credit, he did not abandon his son Jonathan—
the proverbial wastrel child—even when Jonathan decided to
become a lawyer instead of an engineer (imagine Joe’s dismay).
Joe took great pride in Jonathan starting his own law firm,
much as Joe had started “Shared Applications” a generation
earlier. But Joe was most delighted when his daughter, Carol,
was appointed director of engineering communications for
the University of Colorado, Boulder. At least one acorn didn’t
fall so far from the tree.
It would be a great understatement to say that Joe Rowe
is sorely missed, in all the many places where he plied his
talents, by his family and friends, and of course most of all by
his loving wife, Anne, and their children. Additional survivors
included his father, Joseph, who succeeded him in death in
2005; his brother, Donald; and four grandchildren—Rachel,
Alethea, Kyla, and Aaron. As the years go by, we who are left
behind also realize, more and more, how much Joe taught us
by his great example of unwavering personal integrity and
plain old-fashioned hard work.
