The IEEE honor society, Eta Kappa Nu, bestowed on Dr. Stanley Archibald White the Vladimir Karapetoff Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2005, an award which has been given only 21 times.
SAN CLEMENTE, CA, April 15, 2020 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Dr. White with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Dr. White celebrates many years' experience in his professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes he has accrued in his field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Stanley Archibald White, Ph.D., P.E., a third generation engineer, was born in Rhode Island at the start of the Depression. His parents moved frequently (IL, WI, FL, OH, PA, NJ) because of his father's War Department assignments. The last one cost his father's life in World War II, when Dr. White was 10 years old. His mother's remarriage 18 months later took him to Indiana. A first job was radio announcer at Indianapolis' NBC station WIRE and Indiana's first FM station WXLW/WABW. Shortly after the outbreak of the Korean War, he transferred to the regular U.S. Air force from the Indiana National Guard. Following Basic Training, he was assigned to the Strategic Air Command, received an intensive Top-Secret education, was assigned to work in the Atlantic Missile Range (AMR), and was launched on a rewarding lifetime career in aerospace engineering. He served two tours of duty in the AMR punctuated by a brief Korean War assignment, accepted his honorable discharge with 9 citations in February, 1955 and headed straight to engineering school.
He attended Purdue University's West Lafayette, IN campus, (then the free-world's largest engineering school and where Emelia Earhart had been Research Professor of Aeronautics) for the 48-month-maximum (irrespective of 70+ months of service) available on the GI Bill, obtained his BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering while working on campus as both a teaching assistant and laboratory assistant, working at the Indianapolis GM plant on jet-aircraft-engine development and testing when classes were not in session,, and raising a son and a daughter. He was inducted into the engineering honor societies, Tau Beta Pi and Eta Kappa Nu, and was elected President of the Purdue Chapter of Eta Kappa Nu. The graduate committee recommended he continue immediately towards his doctorate, but he felt he needed more hands-on real-world experience. The Air Force and GM were a great start.
In January, 1959 he left Purdue for 2½ years to work in aerospace engineering with the famous science and engineering teams at North American Aviation Corp. (NAA) in the Los Angeles area, and concurrently to both take and teach graduate-level aerospace-engineering courses at UCLA under Prof. Cornelius Leondes. NAA appointed him Responsible Engineer for part of the heart of the Minuteman missile guidance, navigation, and control (GN&C) system, and he delivered a superb system on schedule. That was an unforgettable experience.
In September, 1961 he returned to Purdue with his wife, Edda Maria, whom he married in Puerto Rico in 1956, their three children, and their border collie, in order to teach full-time for another two years as he completed his doctoral coursework and pre-dissertation examinations, passed his German and tackled his Russian language requirements, wrote his research proposal, completed an MA in Applied Mathematics, and received his Professional Engineer license (9756). In the summer of 1962, he returned to NAA to work on the star tracker for the mach-3 XB-70 intercontinental bomber, and in the summer of 1963 to work on the JPL Voyager Spacecraft navigation-system-definition study. In 1963, he won the fiercely competitive NAA Science-Engineering Fellowship, began his research "on linear analog estimators for feedback control systems operating in a dynamically changing environment" under Prof. John ("Black Jack") Gibson in Gibson's Controls and Information Systems Laboratory, and in 1965 he finally passed his Russian language exam, received his Ph.D. with commendations and was inducted into Sigma Xi, the scientific research honor society. After he returned to Southern California he continued his education in the evening, studying music theory, music history, composing, arranging, conducting and performing classical choral music at Fullerton College, and has been singing great choral works for many years ever since in Master Chorales as well as his church choirs.
He continued his dual career as NAA aerospace engineer/scientist ad UCLA/UCI Adjunct Professor. As NAA became North American Rockwell, Rockwell International, and Boeing North American, Dr. White advanced on both management and technical tracks to become both Research Department Manager and Chief Scientist as he worked on the increasingly sophisticated GN&C and communications systems for aircraft, missile systems and spacecraft. After 31 years he retired as Scientific Advisor with a 10-year retainer. He also established his own consulting company, Signal Processing and Controls Systems Corp, SPACECorp™, a GN&C and space-communications "boutique," with a clientele of NASA, JPL, DoD, Rockwell, Honeywell, Boeing, and others that declined to be identified. After 13 exhilarating but exhausting entrepreneurial years, he retired from SPACECorp™ to restrict his consulting to only the most interesting challenges, invariably on highly classified problems with no rush schedules. He also founded and served as President of Sigma Xi's Orange County Chapter 1988-2000 and 2005-2020.
As a writer he coauthored three engineering textbooks, published dozens of refereed articles in the profession journals, authored articles for over 15 years for the 8th, 9th and 10th editions of the McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology, and provided material for many engineering reference books. He also organized and chaired 8 major international engineering conferences, and served in technical and administrative capacities in professional and governmental organizations and as an advisor on the MICRO program for governor Deukmejian.
Dr. White is a Life Member and an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Institute for the Advancement of Engineering, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the New York Academy of Sciences and was elected Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Purdue University named him a Distinguished Engineering Alumnus in 1988, Outstanding Electrical Engineer in 1992 and Honors College alumnus.
He has been listed in the International Who's Who in Medical Engineering by the International Institute for Medical Electronics and Biological Engineering (Paris, France), American Men and Women of Science® by the Bowker-Cattrell Press., Who's Who in California® by the Who's Who Historical Society, Who's Who in Engineering® by the American Association of Engineering Societies in 1982; was named as Engineer of the Year by both the Orange County (CA) Engineering Council in 1984 and the Rockwell International Corporation in 1985. He also received from the Rockwell Corporation the Meritorious Invention Award in 1989 and in 1986 the Leonardo da Vinci Medallion, Rockwell's highest award for engineering and scientific achievement. From the IEEE he was awarded the Centennial Medal in 1984 and the Millennium Medal in 2000; the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society recognized him with the Technical Achievement Award in 1996 and the Silver Jubilee Medal in 1999. Both the National Electronics Conference and the IEEE Signal Processing Society named him Distinguished Lecturer. The IEEE honor society, Eta Kappa Nu, bestowed on him the Vladimir Karapetoff Outstanding Technical Achievement Award in 2005, an award which has been given only 21 times. As an inventor, he holds 82 US and 20 foreign patents on aerospace and communications devices, subsystems and systems; and their manufacture, packaging, testing and maintenance.
He is a member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA), the American Association of Physics Teachers, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and a life member of the Air Force Association, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Dr. White had four remarkable children who died as young adults. Daughter Dianne succumbed to acute lymphocytic leukemia at 22. Three sons were born with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) which weakened their autonomous muscles and paralyzed their voluntary muscles below their necks. Eldest son Stanley A. Jr. (aka "Jay") died of viral pericarditis exacerbated by DMD at 24; middle son Paul died of heart failure at 44, caused by DMD; youngest son John died at 35 of hepatitis C and Gilbert's disease (another liver disease) acquired as a child by a blood transfusion during surgery. Dr. White and his wife became recognized experts in the care and infection control of DMD patients, and cared for all 4 children at home throughout their lives for 47 years, with hired medical help as necessary. They were both very active in the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) and personally knew MDA chairman Jerry Lewis.
Dr. White himself was stricken with adult-onset normal-pressure hydrocephalus (NPH) in 1986, was misdiagnosed for 20 years as his health declined, until he correctly self-diagnosed and referred himself to UCLA neurosurgeon Marvin Bergsneider who brought this incurable disease under complete control. Dr. White now is a national patient peer counselor for the Hydrocephalus Association and gives community lectures on NPH, the Reversible Dementia. For a decade, he also was a volunteer VA "Vet-2-Vet In-Home Weekly Visitor." He'd measure and record their vital signs, check on their general wellbeing, inform their families and caregivers on their condition and needs, and provide an hour or so of companionship. He also is a decade-long clinical volunteer at Mission Hospital Medical Center in Mission Viejo, CA where he worked on the acute cardiac care floor. Earlier he had served on the hospital's Community Benefit Committee. He also organizes and leads the Christmas Carolers throughout the hospital for 2 weeks every year.
During the 1970s, he was Chairman of both the Placentia-Yorba Linda Fair Housing Council and the Community Assistance Fund, Chairman of the Orange County (CA) Parent Group for Handicapped Children and Adults, and served on Governor Jerry Brown's Advisory Committee on Special Education for the Physically Handicapped.
A celebrated Marquis listee, Dr. White has been cited in over 65 editions of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in Science and Engineering, Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in Finance and Business, and Who's Who in the West.
About Marquis Who's Who®
Since 1899, when A. N. Marquis printed the First Edition of Who's Who in America®, Marquis Who's Who® has chronicled the lives of the most accomplished individuals and innovators from every significant field of endeavor, including politics, business, medicine, law, education, art, religion and entertainment. Today, Who's Who in America® remains an essential biographical source for thousands of researchers, journalists, librarians and executive search firms around the world. Marquis® now publishes many Who's Who titles, including Who's Who in America®, Who's Who in the World®, Who's Who in American Law®, Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare®, Who's Who in Science and Engineering®, and Who's Who in Asia®. Marquis® publications may be visited at the official Marquis Who's Who® website at www.marquiswhoswho.com.
# # #