Thomas Harvey Morrin (24 November 1914 – 15 July 1998) was an American engineer and the director of engineering at SRI International from 1948 to 1963.

Early life and education

Career

Morrin had an extensive naval career during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

as a naval engineer, and later worked at the

Office of Naval Research The Office of Naval Research (ONR) is an organization within the United States Department of the Navy responsible for the science and technology programs of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Established by Congress in 1946, its mission is to plan ...

. Nielson, p. B-4 Morrin was recruited to SRI international in 1948, where he was the first member and head of their Engineering Group and recruited many prominent engineers, particularly from the Harvard Radio Research Laboratory; one of these was Jerre Noe, who would go on to lead SRI's Information Sciences and Engineering Division. He played a key role in bringing Electronic Recording Machine, Accounting (ERMA) to SRI, and had significant involvement in the ERMA project itself. Nielson, p. 2-2 Morrin was later involved in the development of a large contract with the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

dedicated to continuous, broad technical support, the Combat Development Experimentation Center (CDEC). In Spring 1958, General Fred Gibb landed his helicopter in SRI's parking lot, met with SRI's president (then E. Finley Carter) and demanded that SRI submit a sole source bid to the existing CDEC in

Fort Ord, California Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay of the Pacific Ocean coast in California, which closed in 1994 due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action. Most of the fort's land now makes up the Fort Ord National Monument, m ...

; SRI's $1 million bid was accepted and the contract ran for eight years, until September 1966. Nielson, p. 8-8 - 8-9 He was also instrumental in bringing in work from

Southern Pacific The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials- SP) was an American Class I railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was operated by various companies under the ...

, including

William K. MacCurdy William K. MacCurdy was an American engineer at SRI International that developed the Hydra-Cushion freight car for Southern Pacific in 1954. Cushioned rail cars based on his design are still the standard. Career MacCurdy joined SRI Internationa ...

's Hydra-Cushion and a grade crossing computer. Morrin left SRI in 1963.

Awards and honors

In 1960, Morrin was named an IEEE Fellow. In 1999, he was named to SRI's Hall of Fame.

References

Works cited

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Morrin, Thomas H. SRI International people Fellows of the IEEE 1914 births 1998 deaths