Harmon W. Hubbard
Harmon W. Hubbard, a former Lab physicist, died March 14 at his home in Brentwood, after a brief illness. He was 89.
Hubbard was born in St. Louis, Mo. in 1923. He attended elementary and high schools in Bloomington, Ill., served in the U.S. Army from 1944 to 1946 and was discharged as a first lieutenant.
He married Lucina Agbabian in 1954. The couple lived an active life traveling, exploring their mutual interests in music and the arts of various countries, including the Middle East, where Hubbard taught physics courses at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.
He received his bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1947 and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1952.
He was a founding member of RDA (Research and Development Associates) working in nuclear technology and the application of physics to problems of national security until his retirement in 1988.
His work included studies of seismic detection of underground explosions and studies of proliferation of nuclear explosions.
He also worked on nuclear fusion explosion systems to produce commercial electricity. Prior to his work at RDA he was a senior physicist at the Rand Corporation from 1958 to 1971, and at the Laboratory from 1952 to 1956. He was a member of the Sigma Xi, elected in the year 1951, a society "Devoted to the Promotion of Research in Science".
During his retirement years, Harmon continued reading and researching a wide variety of topics that sparked his curiosity and kept him up to date. As late as two days before his passing, he shared with his wife what topic he was going to look into next.
Hubbard's life was celebrated during a memorial service at the home and garden where he lived for the past 51 years. Officiating at the ceremony was his friend Rev. Vartkes Kassouni with whom he had hiked and skied.
He is survived by his wife Lucina Agbabian Hubbard; his sister Sara-Jane Gamble; his nieces and nephews Diane Stotler, Kathy Hubbard, Cindy Keegan, Charles Stotler, Richard Hubbard, and their children Elizabeth Turner, Thomas Stotler and Haley Stotler.
