National Academies Press: OpenBook

Memorial Tributes: Volume 6 (1993)

Chapter: Thomas O. Paine

« Previous: Robert N. Noyce
Suggested Citation:"Thomas O. Paine." National Academy of Engineering. 1993. Memorial Tributes: Volume 6. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2231.
×
Page 160
Suggested Citation:"Thomas O. Paine." National Academy of Engineering. 1993. Memorial Tributes: Volume 6. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2231.
×
Page 161
Suggested Citation:"Thomas O. Paine." National Academy of Engineering. 1993. Memorial Tributes: Volume 6. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2231.
×
Page 162
Suggested Citation:"Thomas O. Paine." National Academy of Engineering. 1993. Memorial Tributes: Volume 6. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2231.
×
Page 163
Suggested Citation:"Thomas O. Paine." National Academy of Engineering. 1993. Memorial Tributes: Volume 6. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2231.
×
Page 164
Suggested Citation:"Thomas O. Paine." National Academy of Engineering. 1993. Memorial Tributes: Volume 6. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/2231.
×
Page 165

Below is the uncorrected machine-read text of this chapter, intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text of each book. Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.

THOMAS O. PAINE 1921-1992 BY EDWARD E. HOOD, JR. THOMAS O. PAINE, a former administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a long-time General Electric (GE) research scientist and executive, and later president and chief operating officer of the Northrop Corpora- tion, died of cancer on May 4, 1992, at the age of seventy. Dr. Paine's greatest accomplishment came in his nearly three years with NASA, first as deputy administrator beginning in January 1968 and then as administrator from March 1969 to September 1970. These were among the most historic and heroic years in the history of the space program. The first seven Apollo missions were launched, twenty astronauts orbited the earth, fourteen flew to the moon, and four men walked on the lunar surface. Dr. Paine will be best remembered as the man who directed these feats of science, engineering, and exploration. Tom was born in Berkeley, California, on November 9, 1921. He earned an A.B. degree in engineering from Brown University in 1942. Tom served as a naval officer aboard combat submarines in the Pacific during World War II and, after the war, married Barbara Helen Taunton Pearse of Perth, Western Australia. Tom earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in physical metallurgy from Stanford University, where he initiated research on liquid metal heat transfer systems for advanced submarine reactors. From Stanford, Dr. Paine joined the General Electric Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, where he conducted studies on mag- 161

162 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES netic and composite materials. This work led to the first demon- stration of the shape anisotropy effect in single-domain mag- netic particles, and to worldwide basic patents of "Lodex" per- manent magnets. Tom moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, where he managed ma- terials development at the GE Meter and Instruments Depart- ment. Later, as laboratory manager, his projects ranged from development of photo cells and non-arc-tracking organic insula- tion to solid-state nuclear reactor control systems and aircraft instrumentation. For the successful f~ne-particle magnetic de- velopment program, Tom's laboratory received the 1956 award for "outstanding contributions to industrial science" from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He returned to the GE Research and Development Center in Schenectady in 1959 as manager of technical analysis before becoming manager of engineering applications. In the latter capacity, he organized and managed a new laboratory compo- nent engaged in development programs in fields ranging from medical electronics and electric vehicles to power sources in villages in developing nations. In 1963 Tom moved to Santa Barbara, California, to manage GE's Center for Advanced Studies, an innovative four hundred- man "think-tank" conducting nondisciplinary planning research for government and industry in the United States and abroad. These programs ranged from developing criteria for selecting "mode] cities" to logistic support systems for Polaris submarines, and from designing computerized management systems to eco- nomic development projects in Africa. On January 31, 1969, President Johnson appointed Tom Paine deputy administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Upon the retirement of James E. Webb on October 8, 196S, President Johnson named Tom to be acting administrator of NASA. His nomination as administrator was announced by President Nixon on March 5, 1969, and con- firmed by the Senate on March 20,1969. Itwas during his tenure that the first seven Apollo manned missions were flown, includ- ing the historic Apollo ~ 1 mission, which first landed men on the

THOMAS O. PAINE 163 moon in August 1969. Many automated scientific and applica- tions spacecraft were also flown in Earth orbit and out as far as Mars. He organized a number of successful international pro- grams through which other nations participated in U.S. space operations. Tom returned to GE in late 1970, becoming vice-president and group executive of GE's Power Generation Group (World- wide Nuclear Power and Steam and Gas Turbines). Tom capped his distinguished twenty-five-year GE career as senior vice-presi- dent for science and technology before becoming president and chief operating officer, and a director, of the Northrop Corpo- ration in 1976. Tom retired from Northrop in 1982 to become chairman of Thomas Paine Associates, consultants in high-technology enter- prises. Tom served as a director of Eastern Airlines, RCA, NBC, Arthur D. Little, NIKE, Quotron Systems, SatScan, and Orbital Sciences Corp. He also served as chairman of the Pacific Forum; a trustee of the Committee for Economic Development, the Asian Institute of Technology (Bangkok), and Occidental Col- lege; and a member of the Visiting Committee of the East-West Center of the University of Hawaii. In recognition of his outstanding career . in both private industry and public service, Tom Paine was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1973. Tom was the author or coauthor of more than thirty-five published technical papers and held several patents. He was a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the American Astronautical Society, and a member of the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and other scientific and engineering societies. He held honorary degrees from various universities in the United States and overseas and was awarded the U.S. Navy Commendation Medal and Submarine Combat Insignia with stars, the NASA Apollo Achievement Award and its Distin- guished Service Medal, the Order Al Merito Della Repubblica Italiana, the Washington Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers, the John Fritz Medal of the United Engineering

164 MEMORIAL TRIBUTES Trustees, the Humanitarian Award of the National Conference of Christians and dews, and the Faraday Medal of the Institution of Electrical Engineers (London). Tom is survived by his wife, Barbara, and their four children, Marguerite, George, Judith, and Frank. Tom Paine was an engineer who applied his science in both the private and public sectors, for the benefit of both the United States and the world. His life and work made history.

Next: Alan J. Perlis »
Memorial Tributes: Volume 6 Get This Book
×
Buy Hardback | $107.00
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

This series presents biographies of deceased members of the National Academy of Engineering.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!