(This background is how I've always pictured my Father's magnificent mind.)
Son and Brother
Husband
Father
Grandpa and Great-Grandpa
Friend
Subject: Loren Collins
Date: Sun, 18 May 2003 18:36:01 -0400
From: G. Miller <lgraym@comcast.net>
Reply-To: lgraym@comcast.net
To: WX Forum <wxforum@imagicomm.com>
As those of you who knew Loren received the news of his death I imagine
you went through many of the same emotions that I experienced: surprise,
shock at the circumstances then a profound sadness at the passing of a
"true gentleman." Most of us knew him as a superb design engineer whose
attention to detail and technical knowledge made him a prized member of
any design team.
The stories of his accomplishments are many. I particularly recall his
efforts during the Harpoon computer design. As a young engineer I
marveled at his grasp of my chosen field. I remember a particularly
difficult interface board that conveyed commands between our computer
and the hardware responsible for launching the Harpoon Missile. This
was, of course, a critical interface and it was behind schedule and
complicated. Loren came onto the program to take charge of it and we all
breathed a sigh of relief. With his amazing breadth of knowledge he
wrestled the design into submission then committed it to approximately
sixty state of the art integrated circuits packaged on a multiple layer
printed circuit board. There was no time to breadboard it as was our
preference. What was worse, multi-layer boards were in their infancy,
very expensive and difficult to obtain. If there were excessive changes
the board would have had to be redesigned to accommodate production
needs. It was the last board to arrive and we feared it was going to
hold up the delivery. After it's arrival it was quickly "stuffed" with
parts and delivered to Loren in our lab at ATL. As we watched, he ran
his preliminary tests then plugged the board into one of our few working
computers. To our astonishment it worked the first time! Now, just
because it worked wasn't good enough for Loren. He proceeded to prove to
his satisfaction that it "really worked" by looking at each signal and
thoroughly testing the "Corner Points" of his design. The board went
into production without a single jumper wire! That was almost thirty
years ago. To my knowledge the board is still being produced; I'm aware
of no failures in the design!
Loren helped me appreciate the elegance of "simplicity" in a design.
With his help I grew to develop a "sense" for when a design was just too
complex. At that point he taught me that it was time to "take a break"
and look at the design from a different vantage point. There is "an art"
in recognizing when a design had reached that point, and make no
mistake, when it came to design, he WAS AN ARTIST. Loren had a favorite
saying: "It is much better to STAY out of trouble than GET out of
trouble." (He suggested that we should apply that principle to more than
just our professional lives, by the way.) In addition to his technical
skills he had a dry sense of humor that was always accompanied by a
sparkle in his eye. That sparkle was your clue that you had best examine
his words carefully; there was apt to be a hidden "gem" buried in those
words. If you found it, you'd laugh for hours.
It was difficult to find a topic that Loren couldn't address with a
surprising mastery of detail. He was a resource that was invaluable to
the company and , in particular, to a young engineer. The world has lost
a spectacular engineer and a true gentleman. I've lost a signpost of my
past, a mentor and, what's more significant, a true friend.
I spoke with his wife and daughter shortly after his death, they are
doing well and wanted to communicate their plans for Loren's funeral.
On Thursday May the 22nd there will be a memorial service at 10:00 AM at
the Apfel-Butler-Geddes Funeral Home (1123 West Second, Grand Island, NE
68801, 308-384-0590, fax 308-384-5642) in Grand Island, Nebraska (his
childhood home). Burial will follow the service, also in Grand Island.
They plan to have a memorial gathering of his friends and co-workers in
Maryland sometime during the week of June the second. The get together
will be in the vicinity of the Northrop Grumman facility. As those plans
become firm I'll pass them along.
Loren is survived by his wife Mary Jane at their home in Georgetown, TX
-- daughter Mary Ann in Severna Park, MD -- son Thomas in Columbia, MD
-- son Robert in Dover, DE -- four grandchildren and three
great-grandchildren.
Gray Miller
