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Memorial Tributes: Volume 22 (2019)

Chapter: W. DALE COMPTON

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Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
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In 1938 Ray and three other young friends planned and completed an approximately 10-day, 35-mile mountain climbing trip in the Northern Cascades range, including six mountain peaks that had not been climbed previously. Nearly 80 years later, the Seattle mountaineering community refers to this trip as the Ptarmigan Traverse and it is still considered a challenging trip using modern equipment.

Members of Ray’s family and his close friends believe the impression made on Ray as a member of the Ptarmigan Club was profound. After his remarkable success as a teenager he set his sights on greater objectives, “climbing” ever higher and delighting in the friendship of his students and colleagues. They all joined him in solving complex problems in many different fields of engineering.

Ray’s wife Shirley preceded him in death on April 17, 2016. They are survived by their son Douglas, daughters Allison and Meredith, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and many nephews and nieces.

Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
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Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

W. DALE COMPTON

1929–2017

Elected in 1981

“For exceptional leadership in developing advanced automotive technologies, individual achievements in engineering physics, and innovative contributions in promoting university-industry relations.”

BY LEAH H. JAMIESON AND ABHIJIT DESHMUKH

WALTER DALE COMPTON, former vice president of research at Ford Motor Company, Lillian M. Gilbreth Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Industrial Engineering at Purdue University, and former home secretary of the National Academy of Engineering, died February 7, 2017, at his home in West Lafayette, Indiana, at the age of 88.

Dale was born January 7, 1929, in Chrisman, Illinois, to Roy and Marcia Compton. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Wabash College in 1949 and his master’s in physics from the University of Oklahoma in 1951. While at Oklahoma he met his future bride, Jeanne Parker; they married in 1951. In 1952 Dale entered the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), where he received a PhD in experimental condensed matter physics in 1955.

Dr. Compton began his professional career as a research physicist at the US Naval Ordnance Test Station at China Lake, California, and continued his research at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC.

In 1961 he returned to UIUC as an associate professor of physics. He was promoted to full professor in 1964 and the following year appointed director of the Coordinated Sciences Laboratory (CSL), which he built into a world-class organization working on control, computer, and communication

Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

systems. Under his leadership, CSL developed theories and created landmark inventions that were years ahead of their time.

In 1970 Dr. Compton became director of the Chemical and Physical Sciences Laboratory at Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Michigan. He was named executive director for research in 1972, and from 1973 to 1986 was Ford’s vice president of research. During his tenure at the company, he promoted innovations in modeling and simulation of the design and manufacture of automotive components and systems, and established a balance between near- and long-term research that led to a succession of technological breakthroughs that enabled Ford to develop superior products and produce them successfully worldwide.

In 1988 he came to Purdue University as the inaugural Lillian M. Gilbreth Distinguished Professor of Industrial Engineering and immediately became involved in the NSF Center for Intelligent Manufacturing Systems and the newly formed Center for the Management of Manufacturing Enterprises. He spent the rest of his career at Purdue, including serving as interim head of the School of Industrial Engineering (1998–2000). He retired in 2004 as professor emeritus.

Dale’s research interests spanned materials science and engineering; automotive, combustion, and manufacturing engineering; and management of technology. His work focused on how the introduction of new technology in the semiconductor and telecommunication industries changed over time and, later, structural materials with nanocrystalline microstructures.

He was the author, contributor, or editor of more than 85 publications and, with his team in Industrial Engineering at Purdue, registered 13 patents. He authored a textbook on Engineering Management: Creating and Managing World-Class Operations (Prentice-Hall, 1997); coedited, with Joseph A. Heim, Manufacturing Systems: Foundations of World Class Practice (National Academy Press, 1991); coauthored, with James H. Schulman, Color Centers in Solids (Macmillan, 1962);

Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
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and edited Interaction of Science and Technology (University of Illinois Press, 1969).

Dale was active in many NAE and National Research Council (NRC) activities. He chaired the NRC Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems (1997–2000), joint Committee on the Future of Personal Transport in China (2000–02), and NAE Committee on Foundations of Manufacturing (1989–92); served on the NRC Board on Manufacturing and Engineering Design (1995–96) and NAE Committee for Engineering as an International Enterprise (1988–90); and edited the 1988 NAE report Design and Analysis of Integrated Manufacturing Systems. In addition, he served as an NAE councillor (1990–96), home secretary (2000–08), and member of the NRC Governing Board (2000–06), NAE Membership Policy Committee (chair, 1988–91), NAE Program Committee (1992–98), and NRC Report Review Committee (1988–90).

As the first NAE Senior Fellow (1986–88), Dale continued his focus on issues related to industry and engineering education and led the development of programs related to international competitiveness. With experience in both academia and industry, he cochaired the 1987 NAE Committee on Technology Issues that Impact International Competitiveness that led to the creation of the National Science Foundation’s flagship Engineering Research Centers program. He served as senior advisor to the ERCs and the NAE ERC Assessment Committee (1988–89). The ERC model set NSF’s course in the establishment of national research centers built on connecting university research with industry practice. These on-campus centers have produced a steady stream of technologies that have led to fundamental changes in manufacturing in the United States.

At both the National Academies and Purdue, Dale promoted collaboration between engineers and health professionals toward the goal of delivering safe, effective, timely, efficient, equitable, and patient-centered health care. Starting in the 2000s he championed program activities aimed at bringing engineering applications and research to bear on

Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×

cost, quality, and safety challenges facing the US healthcare system. He cochaired the joint NAE/Institute of Medicine (IOM) study committee on Engineering and the Delivery of Health Care (2002–05), which produced the influential report, Building a Better Delivery System: A New Engineering/Health Care Partnership. This seminal report recommended public- and private-sector actions to advance the development, adaptation, and use of systems engineering tools in health care and led, among other outcomes, to the landmark creation by the US Department of Veterans Affairs of centers that combine a VA healthcare facility with academic engineering partners.

In addition to his service to the National Academies, Dale served on the board of governors for Argonne National Laboratory, the advisory board for Sandia National Laboratories Combustion Research Facility, the industrial committees for the University of Michigan and the Ohio State University, the Technical Advisory Committee for Cummins Engine Co. (1999), and the St. Vincent Hospital (Indianapolis) Quality Committee of the Board of Directors.

He was a member of the Research Society of America, Phi Beta Kappa, and Delta Tau Delta and a fellow of the American Physical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Engineering Society of Detroit, Society of Automotive Engineers, Washington Academy of Sciences, and IC2 Institute of the University of Texas at Austin.

Among his many honors and awards are the US Naval Research Laboratory Commendation (1961), an honorary doctorate of engineering from Michigan Technological University (1976), the Science Trailblazers Award from the Detroit Science Center and Michigan Sesquicentennial Commission (1986), and the M. Eugene Merchant Manufacturing Medal from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and Society of Manufacturing Engineers in recognition of his lifelong commitment to manufacturing excellence (1999). In 2003 he received a UIUC Alumni Award for Distinguished Service for “substantive research achievements in unraveling the behavior of defects and color centers in solids, exceptional leadership in engineering practice and management, and enduring

Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 59
Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 60
Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 61
Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 62
Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
Page 63
Suggested Citation:"W. DALE COMPTON." National Academy of Engineering. 2019. Memorial Tributes: Volume 22. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/25543.
×
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This is the 22nd Volume in the series Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and foreign associates. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and foreign associates, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.

Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and foreign associates, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.

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