Obituary for Edward Nelson Skomal Known as Nelson within the family and Ed professionally, E N Skomal was born in Kansas City, MO to Edward Albert Skomal and Ruth Bangs. A gifted and exacting scholar, Ed was selected for the Navy’s V-12 Radio Technology program in 1943 during WWII, and earned both BA (1947) and MA (1949) in Physics at Rice Institute (now University), Houston, TX. His career spanned the Cold War, where he worked in government, industry, and as a government contractor.
As a Rice graduate fellow, Ed was part of Charles F. Squires’ team, whose low-pressure chamber produced the lowest temperatures possible -457o F, necessary to move sound 31,000 mph. Post graduation in 1949, he became Project Engineer for Magnolia Oil Company Field Research Laboratories Dallas, TX. After marriage in 1951 to Elizabeth Margaret, they moved to DC, where Ed served as Assistant Section Chief and Supervisory physicist for the Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratory (National Bureau of Standards; NIST).
There, he designed electromagnetic devices for insertion in metal plates to detect the steel on a military tank’s treads and destroy unfriendly equipment. This technology became the standard used throughout the Cold War. In search of greater challenge, Ed moved the family in 1956 to California, where he became an Advanced Development Engineer at the Electronic Defense Laboratory, part of Sylvania Electronic Microwave Physics Laboratory in Palo Alto.
Ed worked with a small team on a direct US Army defense department contract to develop a common dialogue on electromagnetic theory. He moved with some of that team in 1959 to the newly formed Solid State Electronics Division at Motorola, Inc., Phoenix, AZ. Ed served Motorola as Chief Applied Engineer on theoretical development of the electromagnetic variation and magnetism’s influence on physics.
In Southern CA, he was Staff Scientist, then Development Engineer and Physicist at Aerospace Corporation, Norton Air Force Base, San Bernardino, CA, 1963-1972. At the end of the Vietnam War, Ed commuted to Aerospace Corporation HQ in Hawthorne, CA, to become Director of the Communications Department in the Office of the Chief Engineer. His focus on electromagnetism in space theory coincided with President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.
Ed retired in 1986 after 20 years at Aerospace. His awards and honors include two appointments to the Presidential Joint Technical Advisory Committee on Electromagnetic Compatibility, as well as the Presidential Joint Committee on International Union Radio Science. In addition to membership on the US National Committee of Union Radio-Scientifique Internationale, Ed was singularly proud of his contributions to the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
He served on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on EMC, earned the 1970 Paper of the Year award of the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society, 1971 EMC Certificate of Achievement, and the 1980 Richard S. Stoddart Award of the IEEE EMC Society, for contributions to the theory and measurement of man-made radio noise. He was also appointed Chairman of the IEEE Technical Committee on Electromagnetic Environments and was a member of the EMC Society Standards Committee. During his tenure at Aerospace, Ed was a consultant to the National Security Agency, Ft.
Meade, MD; Department of Commerce, Institute of Telecommunications Sciences in Boulder, CO; and the Department of Justice, Law Enforcement Assistance Administration in DC. In addition to publishing numerous articles and registering 4 patents, Ed pursued an active personal research program on man-made noise and automatic vehicle location. He published this research in three books.
Ed was quiet and intense, a deliberate and methodical thinker, demanding, given to perfectionism, and a man who stood by his word. He believed that the primary qualities required for creativity to flourish are the “willingness to fight for the acceptance of an idea, persistence, and curiosity”. Ed’s beloved wife Beth predeceased him in 1987.
Ed’s influence persists with those who love him: he is survived by his wife Joan; daughters Susan, Cathy, and Peggy; grandchildren Milica, Aleksandar, Elizabeth, Maggie, and Keiller; and great-grandsons, Konstantin, Nikolai, and Luka. He is also mourned by sister Ruth Marie, nieces and nephew, as well as by his stepchildren and step-grandchildren. To send flowers or a memorial gift to the family of Edward Nelson Skomal please visit our Sympathy Store.
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