Memorial Resolution: Oswald Garrison "Mike" Villard, Jr.
Oswald Garrison "Mike" Villard, Jr.
(1916—2004)
Oswald Garrison Villard, Jr., Emeritus Professor in the Electrical Engineering Department of the School of Engineering, who was responsible for many pioneering technical advances in short-wave radio, died of pneumonia on 7 January 2004 in Palo Alto at the age of 87.
"Mike," as he was fondly known by his many friends, colleagues, and family, was born in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y., on 17 September 1916. His family had a history of activism, with both his great-grandfather, William Lloyd Garrison, and grandfather, Henry Hilgard Villard, taking strong stands against slavery and war. His father, Oswald Garrison Villard, Sr., was a noted publisher and editor (The N.Y. Evening Post; The Nation) and he was of the firm opinion that Mike should follow in his footsteps. This led to Mike earning an A.B. degree in English Literature from Yale in 1938 (it was in his first year at Yale that he acquired his nickname "Mike"). However, Mike had developed a strong interest in radio as a teenager, having been issued his first radio ham license in 1932 at the age of 16, and upon winning two English composition prizes while at Yale he spent the money on engineering books, one of which was authored by Stanford Electrical Engineering Professor Frederick E. Terman. This impressed Mike enough for him to want to move to Stanford to study under Terman, which was decidedly against his father's wishes. Remarkably, Terman met with the senior Villard and persuaded him to support his son's move. Until his death some of Mike's most prized possessions were well-thumbed copies of Terman's books, which were always close at hand in his office.
Mike's already strong interest in radio took on a new intensity once he reached Stanford, where he became a research associate in the Electrical Engineering Department (1939-1941) and an instructor (1941-1942) as he pursued a graduate degree in engineering. Among the many ultimately distinguished people with whom Mike interacted at this time were David Packard and William Hewlett, both of whom, like Mike, were radio hams. He also found the time to court and marry (in 1942) Barbara "Bobbie" Letts, whom he met at a dance at Mills College in Oakland. Bobbie became his constant loving companion for the rest of their life together.
The Second World War created a major disruption in Mike's studies, like those of many others, and he ultimately followed Terman to become a member of the Senior Staff at the Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard, which was spearheading the U.S.'s development of radio and radar countermeasures. During this time he made at least one visit to England to help facilitate the transfer of radar jamming equipment; Stanford awarded him the Engineer degree in 1943.
Following the end of the war, Mike returned to Stanford in 1946 and joined the faculty in the Electrical Engineering Department. In 1947 he made the first of his major advances in radio when he designed a simplified transmitter using single-sideband modulation, which more than doubled the number of transmitters (i.e., radio stations) that could operate in a given radio band. Mike was president of the Stanford Amateur Radio Club and its station, W6YX, became the first amateur station to use single-sideband transmissions (Mike afterwards served as the club's faculty advisor and license trustee for many years).
Bobbie remained patient as radio antennas sprouted around their home while she concentrated on raising the three Villard children, Thomas Houghton, Barbara Suzanne, and John Sandford. She also maintained a close relationship with Mills College, endowing the Letts-Villard Chair and ultimately serving as a trustee for many years. It is not perhaps common knowledge that Mike also was cousin to Ernest R. "Jack" Hilgard, a widely respected professor in the Stanford's Psychology department and a pioneer in the scientific study of hypnotism.
In addition to his introduction of single-sideband modulation, Mike's immediate postwar work at Stanford included the development of meteor-burst communications, in which he linked radio transmitters and receivers on the ground via radio signals bounced off the electrically charged trails left in the upper atmosphere by meteors. This latter work led to the award of his Ph.D. in 1949. Furthermore, because meteor-burst communication systems had commercial and defense applications, it also led to a fruitful collaboration between Stanford and the Stanford Research Institution (SRI), then part of Stanford, in which SRI took over the commercial and defense developments, which were not deemed appropriate to the academic setting, while the basic research continued at Stanford. In retrospect, this transfer had implications for the future.
Fred Terman had also returned to Stanford in 1946 as Dean of Engineering. He ultimately became Provost (in 1955) and played a most important role in Stanford's remarkable post-war growth. Encouraged by Terman, with his philosophy of identifying areas where Stanford had initial strength and building on them, Mike began to assemble a group of faculty colleagues in Electrical Engineering that ultimately became one of the leading groups in the U.S. working on what became known as radio science. This group included Ronald N. Bracewell, Von R. Eshleman, Robert A. Helliwell, Lawrence A. Manning, and Allen M. Peterson, among others. Their research was conducted in what was then known as the Radioscience Laboratory, now the Space, Telecommunications and Radioscience (STAR) Laboratory, which formed one of the ultimately five laboratories constituting the Stanford Electronics Laboratories (SEL) within the Electrical Engineering Department.
In the 1960s, building on research conducted by Allen Petersen on the backscatter of radio from far-distant objects over paths involving reflections from the ionosphere and assisted greatly by the research of numerous talented students, including, in particular, Robert B. Fenwick and Lawrence E. Sweeney, Mike pioneered the development of "over-the horizon" radar (OTHR), which could detect aircraft, ships, and missiles thousands of miles away. This work became so successful that much of it had to be classified. Since Stanford was at the time moving away from having classified research conducted on campus the OTHR effort ended up being transferred to the Stanford Research Institute, which was also in the process of separating from Stanford and becoming SRI International. While he remained on the Stanford faculty, and continued to advise graduate students, by 1970 Mike had moved most of his professional work to SRI International in Menlo Park where he served as a Senior Scientific Advisor.
Mike's last serious major research interests in radio included the development of stealth technologies to cancel or otherwise eliminate the return signals from radars or sonars to prevent detection of aircraft and submarines. A second more personal interest was in the development of small, inconspicuous antennas that could receive radio signals, such as those transmitted by the Voice of America, in countries where the signals were being jammed. Generally constructed of simple materials such as aluminum foil, the antennas could be easily concealed and could be positioned to reduce jamming interference. Since he was working at three separate locations, Stanford, SRI International, and his home in Woodside, Mike took to keeping the many trial versions of these antennas and their associated electronics on a large piece of plywood in the trunk of his car, so that he could more easily demonstrate and discuss them with his colleagues—usually in a convenient parking lot!
Mike was the author of more than 60 scientific papers and the holder of 6 patents. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering, as well as the International Scientific Radio Union (URSI). He was a Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and he was elected to SRI International's Alumni Hall of Fame in 1998.
He was also a member of the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board (1961-75) and the Naval Research Advisory Committee (1967-75; chairman 1973-75). For many years he served as chairman of the USA Commission III of URSI and he was an investor director of a number of Silicon Valley companies, including California Microwave Inc., whose funding he famously launched on an airliner by writing a blank check to the founder.
His awards include the Morris Liebman Memorial Prize from the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE, now the IEEE) in 1957, the Award for Meritorious Civilian Service from the Air Force in 1975 (the highest honor given to civilians by the Air Force), and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1982.
Mike's lifelong passion was radio and so it was no surprise that his principal avocation remained ham radio. His call letters were W6QYT and his interests and activities often led to publications in QST, the journal of the American Radio Relay League, the amateur radio society in the U.S. A number of graduate students who were also radio amateurs were attracted to Stanford as a result of these publications. On occasion, Mike reached out to fellow ham radio operators to help in his research, including for some years an extended search for what were termed "long-delayed echoes" and their explanation. His summers were usually spent in the East on Chappaquiddick Island, off Martha's Vineyard, where members of his extended family also vacationed. One summer he succeeded in converting a small peninsula on the island into an antenna for ultra-low frequency radio signals, which aroused considerable suspicion in his neighbors when he was seen standing on the peninsula and waving his arms to direct overflights by a Navy P-3 Orion anti-submarine aircraft; as it happened this project was not at all secret and resulted in a publication in the journal Nature.
Mike's many students remember him as a caring and involved mentor who was supportive not only during their research but also personally in later life. Prior to his death, a group of these former students established a graduate student fellowship in his name, which touched him deeply. He led a rich life, deeply involved with his family and work. Mike's great experience and mentorship will be missed as radio—once again commonly referred to as wireless—increasingly impacts our lives.
Committee: Antony C. Fraser-Smith David B. Leeson
