|
Items in cart [0] |
Questions? Call 888-624-8373 |
| Copyright © 2009. National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved. Terms of Use and Privacy Statement |
Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 204
OCR for page 205
RICHARD STETSON MORSE
1911-1988
BY COURTLAND D
. PERKINS
ON A SUMMER DAY several years ago, a teenager, Laura Morse,
was sitting with several of her friends in a small lunchroom near
Quissett Harbor on Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Up drove a
spectacular sports car, from which emerged a vigorous, hand-
some, white-hairecT man who immediately changed the ambi-
ence in the restaurant. Laura turned to her greatly impressed
friends and said in their vernacular, "That's my grandfather and
he's a Cool Cat." The Coo] Cat was Richard S. Morse, an eminent
and successful entrepreneur, a member of the National Acade-
my of Engineering, a blithe spirit, a brilliant engineer, ant! a
success at many important undertakings. A man full of wit and
the friend of almost everybody.
Dick Morse died several years later, July 1, 198S, of a massive
heart attack after playing tennis with friends in his usual mode
of full speed ahead. He was born on August 19,1911, in Abing-
ton, Massachusetts, and therefore was seventy-six at the time of
his death. His friends agree that his abrupt demise was a blessing
as he would have been an impossible invalid.
Dick attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), from which he received a B.S. in 1933, and did graduate
work at the Technische Hochschule, Munich, during 1933-
1934. Later he received honorary degrees, a D.Eng. from the
Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute (1959) and a D.Sc. from Clark
University (1960~.
205
OCR for page 206
206
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
His forceful character was evidenced early when he met a
beautiful young lady named Marion Elsa Baitz. He decided
immediately that this was the girl for him. After their third date,
he drove Marion to her home, went upstairs to her parents
bedroom, woke them up, and announced that he was going to
marry their daughter. It didn't bother him at all that Marion was
engaged to someone else. Dick maneuvered around this difficul-
ty and married Marion in 1935. This was a very successful
marriage that soon involved two splenclic! sons, Richard S.
Morse, Tr., a successful lawyer in Boston, and Kenneth P. Morse,
like his father an energetic entrepreneur. Later the two sons
married, and Dick and Marion acquired two outstanding daugh-
ters-in-law, Susan and Laura, both of whom they loved very
much. This love was reciprocated fully. The family soon expand-
ed with the birth of a handsome granclson, Richard III, and three
lovely granddaughters, the Laura whom we have already met,
and Amy and Allison. Dick was a hero to all four.
After Dick gracluated from MIT and returned from his studies
in Munich, he went to work for the Eastman Kodak Company in
1935. While on the staff, he became interested in the technology
of high vacuums and their potential for new industrial products.
Convinces! of this potential, he left Kodak in 1940 to found the
National Research Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts, a
venture capital-fundec! organization dedicates! to the develop-
ment of new manufacturing techniques and new products.
Among his successes were vacuum processes for powdered
drugs, the coating of optical lenses, dehydrating food without
sacrificing taste or vitamins, and refining metals without impu-
rities. One of his greatest successes was helping to set up the
Minute Maid Corporation in 1946 to promote his new technique
for making orange juice concentrate. This resulted in the now-
famous Minute Maid orange juice.
Dick Morse broadened his interests and slowly became in-
volvecl with government programs in chemical, biological, and
racliologicalwarfare. In 1959 he resigned as president of Nation-
al Research and became director of research and development
for the U.S. Army. This position was later upgraded to a presiclen-
tial appointment of assistant secretary U.S. Army for research
OCR for page 207
RICHARD STETSON MORSE
207
and development. Dick did not go along too well with the U.S.
Defense Department's downgrading of many U.S. Army pro-
grams, in particular postponing development of the Nike Zeus
and the awarding of almost all military space programs to the
U.S. Air Force. In the election of 1961, Dick, an ardent Repub-
lican, was vocal against the candidacy of John F. Kennedy. This,
of course, led to his eventual resignation in 1961.
After Dick left the government, he continued his interest in
organizing small companies to exploit new developments in
high technology. He had some successes and a few failures, but
he continued his search for new technology-based ventures. He
became involveclwith his old school, MIT, and its Alfred P. Sloan
School of Management. He suggested the establishment of an
MIT Development Foundation that would help MIT's innova-
tive professors develop their icleas and organize new companies
to exploit them. He felt that MIT should become a catalyst in this
innovative process for if such companies became successful, MIT
would also benefit. Dick pushed the idea for this foundation with
his usual vigor. Unfortunately, the timing was baci, and it never
was the success that he hacI hoped for.
Dick also became involvecl with the problems of pollution of
the environment and the search for alternatives to energy
production. This led him into contactwith the U.S. Department
of Commerce and his old MIT colleague, l. Herbert Hollomon,
then the assistant secretary of commerce for research and
development. He helped Hollomon organize a U.S. Department
of Commerce Technical Advisory Board and for many years was
an influential member of this active group. He received national
recognition for this work and became an adviser to the adminis-
tration and to the Congress on innovative solutions to problems
involving energy and pollution. He attacked these problems
with typical vigor and emphasized his basic philosophy of getting
the data and moving out.
As a result of his many contributions to these national techno-
logical problems, he received much exposure on the engineer-
ing scene, leading to his being elected to the National Academy
of Engineering in 1976.
He continued close connections with MIT and eventually was
OCR for page 208
208
MEMORIAL TRIBUTES
named senior lecturer in the Sloan School. His great enthusi-
asm, broad knowledge of technologies and financial manage-
ment, together with his personal relationships with the major
people involved, made his courses in entrepreneurship and
managing innovation extremely popular.
He was active in many important organizations, serving on the
Defense Science Board and as chairman of the Advisory Board
to the U.S. Air Force Systems Command. He was a trustee of the
Aerospace Corporation and the Marine Biological Laboratory at
Woods Hole, a member of the corporation of the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution and the Boston Museum of Science,
and a long-time board member of the Dresser Industries.
His greatest hobby was sailing. He loved the Quissett Harbor
area of Cape Cod and had a summer home there for all his later
life. In 1959 he acquired a beautiful 47-foot sloop, the "Manda-
rin", built for him in Hong Kong from a John Alden design.
Someone asked Marion if she was worried that his first love
seemed to be for his boat. Marion answered brightly, "It's all
right as long as I'm in the top ten."
Dick was a unique man who made many contributions to the
national scene. He was well loved by his family, his business
associates, his neighbors, and his colleagues in the Academy and
elsewhere. He was a hard-driving, brilliant, and witty man, and
the comment of his grandclaughter Laura, that he was a "Cool
Cat," fits him very well indeed.
OCR for page 209
Representative terms from entire chapter:
stetson morse
