Maurice W. Long (April 20, 1925 – October 14, 2023) was an American

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, radar engineer, and physicist. He served as director of the

Georgia Tech Research Institute The Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is the nonprofit applied research arm of the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. GTRI employs around 2,400 people, and is involved in approximately $600 millio ...

from 1968 to 1975. He worked as a part-time radar consultant, principal research engineer at GTRI and adjunct professor of electrical engineering at Southern Polytechnic State University.

Education

Long received a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering from the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

in 1946. He also received a Master of Science in physics and a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from Georgia Tech, and a Master of Science in electrical engineering from the University of Kentucky.

Career

Long began his career at the Engineering Experiment Station (now known as the

) in 1946 as he completed his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at Georgia Tech. By 1963, he was serving as the chief of the Electronics Division of the Engineering Experiment Station. Long succeeded

Wyatt Whitley Wyatt C. Whitley (October 17, 1900 – November 5, 1982) was an American chemist, professor of chemistry and a former director of the Engineering Experiment Station at the Georgia Institute of Technology (now known as the Georgia Tech Rese ...

as director of the Engineering Experiment Station in 1968 and was also given the title of associate dean for research as part of institute president

Edwin D. Harrison Edwin Davies Harrison (January 8, 1916 – October 23, 2001) was the sixth president of the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), from 1957 to 1969. It was in Harrison's honor that the first Stealing the T, 'T' was stolen from the fac ...

's attempts to bring the academic departments and the station closer together. In 1970, institute president

Arthur Hansen Arthur Gene "Art" Hansen (February 28, 1925 – July 5, 2010) was a philanthropist and former chancellor of several American universities. Education and early career Hansen joined the United States Marine Corps Reserve and was sent to Purdue Un ...

moved to absorb the station entirely into the institute. Long resisted this move, feeling that it would compromise the effectiveness of the station. The complete integration of the Engineering Experiment Station and the institute's academic units never occurred, in part due to Long's outspokenness on the issue and in part due to James E. Boyd's selection as interim president upon Hansen's resignation in 1971. During Long's tenure as director, the Engineering Experiment station set a new record of $5.2 million in grants and contracts in fiscal year 1970-71 in spite of an economic recession and government budget cuts. In July 1971, the station lost half of its state funding, resulting in layoffs of a large number of research personnel and the reorganization of the station to make it more financially independent by shifting its focus toward soliciting revenue-generating contracts. Long's annual report of 1972-73 reflected this change, where he defined the station as "a client-oriented research center supported primarily by Federal and industrial grants." The shift in funding led the station toward more environmentally-related research and the development of alternative energy sources. Long retired as director of the Engineering Experiment Station in 1975, but continued to serve as a consultant. He also worked as a private radar consultant, most notably serving as a liaison scientist with the U.S. Office of Naval Research in London, England. He has written and edited several books on radar systems including ''Radar Reflectivity of Land and Sea'' and ''Airborne Early Warning System Concepts''.

Personal life and death

Long married Beverly Benson in 1963, the couple had two children together. Long died on October 14, 2023, aged 98.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Long, Maurice W. 1925 births 2023 deaths Georgia Tech faculty American electrical engineers 21st-century American physicists People from Madisonville, Kentucky