Walter Willing, Chair IEEE Baltimore Section, 2012
Our dear friend and colleague, Walt Willing (2012 Chair IEEE Baltimore
Section), passed away Saturday morning July 28th, 2012, due to complications
associated with his motorcycle accident on June 26th, 2012. He was 57
years old. He is survived by his wife, Mary Kay, daughters Alaina and
Shannon, step-son Todd, his grandson Samuel Edward Metcalfe, along with
numerous brothers and sisters, as well as Mary Kay's family.
Walter Edwin Willing was born into a large and loving family on September
20th, 1954 in Delaware. He attended the University of Delaware where
he graduated third in his class with a BS in Electrical Engineering
in 1976. He later earned his MS in Electrical Engineering from Loyola
College of Maryland. He began his career with Westinghouse Defense in
June 1977 as an associate engineer within the graduate student program,
and immediately found a home in the Reliability Engineering Group where he
served with distinction for 35 years, ultimately rising to the position of
Senior Advisory Engineer. Walt was a mentor to many within and outside of
SSE and was always available for consultation whenever a tough technical
problem presented itself on the numerous programs he supported.
Walt was a member of Tau Beta Pi, a senior member of IEEE where he served
as the 2012 Baltimore Section Chairman, and also filled a key role on
the management committee of the annual Reliability and Maintainability
Symposium (RAMS). He authored numerous papers, with the most recent
presented at the 2012 RAMS. He was working on another paper for the
2013 RAMS at the time of his death. He was a fixture at ATL where his
contributions led to the success of numerous space systems with his
innovative redundancy schemes and protection circuits that made their
way into every payload delivered over the last two decades. Walt was
active in his church and in the community, spending many hours working
with young people in the Discover-E program. Those of us who worked
with him will remember him as a truly exceptional engineer dedicated
to his work and a kind and humble man with a wonderful sense of humor
who was never too busy to answer a question or lend a helping hand.
Walt presence will be sorely missed by everyone who knew him, and in
particular all of us within SSE.
We will really miss Walt!
