Lasting Memories

Alan Jr. Tower Waterman
1918-Jan. 9, 2008
Palo Alto, California

Alan Tower Waterman Jr., 89, a Stanford electrical engineering professor, died of pneumonia in Palo Alto Jan. 9.

He was born in Northampton, Mass. With degrees from Princeton (1939) and Cal Tech (1940), he worked as an airline meteorologist until World War II, when he joined a research team that enabled the use of radar beyond the horizon.

He earned a doctorate from Harvard in 1952 and joined the Stanford faculty of electrical engineering in 1954. He chaired the American section of the International Radio Science Union from 1969-72 and edited the journal Radio Science through the 1980s. Though he retired in 1983, he continued some teaching and undergraduate advisement.

He was active in establishing the Stanford Campus Recreational Association and competed in its tennis competitions.

An outdoorsman from youth, he could still handle a canoe at 89. An early member of the now defunct Rock Climbing Section of the Sierra Club, he climbed in all the major ranges in the Americas and Europe. As the co-founder of Stanford's Angell Field Ancients running club, he ran marathons, including the Boston Marathon. He set the world record for steeplechase in the over-55 age group as a Masters runner.

Palo Alto artists may remember his assistance in hanging the shows of his wife of 54 years, Lori, with whom he also traveled widely and participated in square-dancing clubs. Others may remember him studying Spanish in classes at Avenidas at age 85.

He is survived by his sister, Anne Waterman of Bethesda, Md.; brother, Neil Waterman, of Sonora, Calif.; daughters, Linda Waterman Schrader of Roseburg, Ore., and Donna Waterman of Wiscasset, Maine; sons, Alan Dane of Irving, Texas, and Bruce Waterman of Oakland; 12 grandchildren; and eight great-grandchildren.