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E DWARD C O N RAD ~ O RDAN
1910-1991
BY GEORGE W. SWENSON, JR.
EDWARD C JORDAN professor emeritus of electrical engineer-
ing at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, died after
a short illness on October IS, 1991. He was eighty.
He spent his life from the age of seventeen in the practice of
electrical engineering, having served successfully in the gamut
of roles from radio broadcast technician through engineering
student, industrial engineer, professor, researcher, administra-
tor, author, editor, and consultant to government and industry
over a span of six decades. His accomplishments have been
recognized by numerous awards and offices.
Born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, on December 31, 1910,
he attended the public schools of that city and graduated from
Victoria High School in 1927. The following year he enrolled in
the University of Alberta in the electrical engineering depart-
ment and obtained a position as control operator in the uni-
versity's radio broadcasting station, CKUA. He served in that
position until 1935, supporting himself while he earned BSEE
and MSEE degrees in 1934 and 1936. His first electronic devel-
. . . . . .
opment project was a pioneering automatic gain control system,
which provided a 30-decibel compression ratio for the radio
station's studio audio system. Upon receiving his master's de-
~ree. he sought a position in the electronics industry; however,
'=- 7 ~ 1
the depression limited his options, so he accepted a position as
an electric power engineer in the nickel mines of Sudbury,
97
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
( )ntario. After one year in this situation, he went to Ohio State
University to study for a Ph.D. Although handicapped by im-
paired hearing, forwhich he designed and built his own hearing
aid, he earned the degree in 1940 for a thesis supervised by
Professor William L. Everitt, who became a lifelong colleague
and friend.
Dr. Jordan then spent a year teaching at Worcester Polytech-
nic Institute, after which he returned to Ohio State to join the
electrical engineering faculty. In 1943 Everitt was called to war
service in Washington, whereupon Jordan assumed the entire
burden of electrical communication and electromagnetic theory
courses, including the developing field of microwave technol-
ogy. During this period, he initiated his successful career as a
textbook author, collaborating with Everitt and others on Pr~n-
ciples of Radio (Prentice-Hall, New York, 1942) and starting work
on Electromagnetic Waves and Radiating Systems (Prentice-Hall,
New York, 1950~. In addition, he collaborated with George
Sinclair on the measurement of aircraft antenna patterns by
modeling.
In 1945 Everitt was appointed head of the Department of
Electrical Engineering at the University of Illinois (Urbana-
Champaign campus), and Jordan joined the department as
associate professor. As part of Everitt's mandate to develop the
department into a leading teaching and research institution,
Jordan founded the Raclio Direction Finding Research Labora-
tory. He later assumed leadership of the Antenna Research
Laboratory, and he continued with a regular load of classroom
teaching and thesis supervision until 1954, when he became
head of the electrical engineering department. At that time, he
exchanged his career as a classroom teacher and hands-on
researcher for that of an academic administrator, leading his
department through revolutionary changes over the next twenty-
five years.
Probably his best-known work was the textbookElectromagnetic
Waves and Radiating Systems, first published in 1950, which has
influenced electrical engineering seniors and graduate students
for forty years. It was reprinted many times over the next sixteen
years, and in 1968 an extensively revised second edition was
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EDWARD CONRAD JORDAN
99
published, coauthored with Professor Keith G. Balmain of the
University of Toronto. It still has a wide audience, has been
translated and published in both Spanish and Chinese (both in
Taiwan and Beijing), and has been adopted by universities in
more than thirty countries. During his active years on the Illinois
faculty, Edward Jordan also edited major symposium volumes for
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' (IEEE)
Antennas and Propagation Societ,v and the Union Radio Sci-
entifique Internationale, and published many review papers on
antennas, electromagnetics, electronics, and electrical engi-
. . .
neer~ng education.
Edward Jordan was elected a fellow of the Institute of Radio
Engineers, later the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engi-
neers, in 1953. In subsequentyears he was awarded honorarylife
membership by the IEEE Antennas and Propagation Society,
and other IEEE awards including the Education Medal (1968)
and the Centennial Medal (1984~. He served in several IEEE
national offices and committees.
In 1974 he was elected an eminent member of Eta Kappa Nu,
the North American electrical engineering honor society, and
through the years he was honored for his professional accom-
plishments by the University of Illinois, the Ohio State Univer-
sity, and the University of Alberta.
In 1967 he was elected a member of the National Academy of
Engineering (NAE) "For radio direction finding and antenna
research." Subsequently he served on the NAE Committee on
Telecommunications until 1974, as well as on several other ad
hoc committees and panels dealing with telecommunications
techniques and policy.
He was in demand as a consultant to industry, government,
and universities. Over the years, he served on advisory boards
and panels of the Department of Defense, the U.S. Air Force, the
National Science Foundation, the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, the Union Radio Scientifique Inter-
nationale, Pennsylvania State University, University of Califor-
nia, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Hous-
ton, Purdue University, and, of course, the National Academy of
Engineering. In these voluntary public service duties, he was
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MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
widely traveled throughout the world, reinforcing his stature as
a world leader in his profession.
Under Edward Jordan's leadership, the University of Illinois
Electrical Engineering Department continued the evolution
initiated by William Everitt, from an institution primarily de-
voted to undergraduate teaching to a major research and gradu-
ate teaching organization. The state government of Illinois
budgeted few resources for research and graduate study. At the
same time, the nation demanded of its universities much greater
emphasis on advanced technical education and research, mainly
in response to the perceived imperatives of the cold war and the
challenge posed by the Soviet Union's launching of the first
artificial Earth satellites. Resources were provided mainly in the
form of research grants and contracts from federal agencies,
which supported salaries for faculty and graduate students,
equipment acquisitions, and (through "indirect cost" allow-
ances) infrastructure improvements. Dr. Jordan managed these
opportunities skillfully and wisely, recruiting an outstanding
faculty and encouraging new initiatives in promising research
directions, always with primary emphasis on quality. The result,
by the time of his retirement in 1979, was the country's largest
department of electrical engineering (one hundred professors,
not including computer science), which consistently ranked
among the top four in surveys of qualityofresearch and graduate
education. At that time, the department was producing annually
the country's largest number of combined undergraduate and
graduate electrical engineering degrees. During his term as
head, Jordan signed over six hundred Ph.D. theses in electrical
. .
engineering.
Upon his retirement, he was asked by the Howard Sams
Company to act as editor in chief of the seventh edition of the
classical IT&T electronics handbook, Reference Data for Radio
Engineers, a task that occupied much of his time until 1985. The
handbook was renamed Reference Data for Engineers: Radio, Elec-
tronics, Computer and Communications to reflect the rapid evolu-
tion of the profession since the sixth edition in 1968. The book
contains 48 chapters and 1,360 pages. At the time of his death,
he was engaged in preliminary work on the eighth edition.
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EDWARD CONRADJORDAN
101
Edward Jordan was the son of Conrad and Erna Penk Jordan.
He married MaryHelen Walker in September 1941, in Edmonton.
She died June 1, 1986, in Urbana. He later married Caroline W.
Egbert, who survives.
Also surviving are three sons, Robert of Cairo, Egypt; David of
Helena, Montana; and Thomas of Eugene, Oregon; three grand-
children; and three stepdaughters, Virginia, Barbara, and Judith.
He was greatly admired and respected throughout radio and
electronic engineering circles of the world. To the younger
faculty members of his department, he was a father figure; to
senior colleagues and fellow Rotarians, a friend and confidant
and golfing partner. He will be missed by all.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
engineering department
