Ray King
Ray King, a retired Lab engineer, died Feb. 21. He was 77.
Born in Montrose, Colo., on Jan. 1, 1933, King grew up on a large ranch in the mountains outside of Montrose. He took great pride and enjoyment in his high school years as a member of FFA (Future Farmers of America) and became state president his senior year in high school.
He worked his way through college as a radio announcer for several radio stations in Colorado and Indiana. He earned bachelor’s degrees in electronic engineering and electrical engineering at Indiana Institute of Technology in 1956 and 1957, respectively. He earned a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Colorado in 1960 and 1965.
His career in academia began in 1962 as a research associate at the University of Colorado, Boulder. In 1965, he became an associate professor of electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and was promoted to professor in 1969, primarily teaching and researching in various aspects of electromagnetic theory and experimentation relating to propagation over non-uniform surfaces.
During 1973-1974, King was a Fulbright Fellow and guest professor at the Electromagnetic Institute at the Technical University of Denmark in Lyngby, and in 1977, he was a visiting Erskine Fellow at the University of Christchurch in New Zealand.
In 1982, King and his family moved to Pleasanton. He joined LLNL as a staff research engineer in the Engineering Research Division and served as deputy leader of the Electromagnetics Effects Program.
In 1983, he co-founded KDC Technology Corp., while maintaining full-time employment at LLNL. King’s focus at KDC was on the development of microwave instrumentation for nondestructive evaluation of materials.
He was elected as a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers in 1986 and served on the IEEE/APS Wave Propagation Standards Committee in 1974 and as chairman from 1985-89. He was general chairman of the 1989 IEEE/APS Symposium and National Radio Science Meeting held in San Jose. In these roles and as an elected member, he served on the APS Administrative Committee. He consulted for the National Academy of Sciences on various industrial and academic panels.
King held nine patents and authored numerous professional papers and the commissioned book, “Microwave Homodyne Systems.”
King retired from the Lab in 1990 and was employed by KDC until the time of his death.
He enjoyed outdoor activities including camping, hiking, fishing, water skiing, canoeing, kayaking, gardening and yard work, wood working, fishing and deer and pheasant hunting. During his years in Wisconsin, he enjoyed raising and showing Siberian Huskies and was an amateur dog sled racer.
He is survived by his wife, Diane; two children, Karl and Kristin; and three grandchildren, Kaden and Madison Strickland and Sydney King.
Services will be held at 1 p.m. today (Feb. 26) at Cross Winds Church, 6444 Sierra Court, Dublin, Calif., with a reception to follow.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be made in King’s name to Compassion International, 12290 Voyager Parkway, Colorado Springs, CO 80921-3668
