Lloyd Berkner

Lloyd Viel Berkner (1905-1967) was an American electrical engineer and geophysicist, born in Milwaukee and raised in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, where amateur radio first caught his interest. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering at the University of Minnesota in 1927, worked for the Bureau of Lighthouses and the Bureau of Standards, and served as radio engineer on the first Byrd Antarctic expedition of 1928 to 1930, setting up its communications. During the Second World War he headed the Navy's radar section and later held the rank of rear admiral in the reserve. Postwar he led atmospheric geophysics at the Carnegie Institution and, as president of Associated Universities, oversaw construction of the National Radio Astronomy Laboratory in West Virginia. He proposed the International Geophysical Year of 1957 and 1958, joined Texas Instruments, helped develop the Graduate Research Center at Southern Methodist University, and was president of the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1961.