Eugene D. Knowles, IEEE/EMC-S Life Member, died Monday
October 13, 1997 at his home in Renton, Washington. He was 76 years old. Gene was born
July, 12, 1921, in San Francisco, California. During World War II, he served in the U. S.
Navy as a Radio Technician and subsequently retired from the USN Reserve as a Lt.
Commander. After graduating from the University of Washington in Electrical Engineering,
he joined the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington where he became an RFI/EMC Engineer.
He retired from the Boeing Company on February 28, 1987. His many memberships included the
IEEE and the Amateur Radio Society where he received a Technician Class License, N7EXC.Gene encouraged Dr. Chester Smith, the General Chairperson of the 1985 EMC Symposium, to involve the American Radio Relay League in the Symposium. The ARRL was coping with interference phenomena from the days of Spark-Gap transmitters and had published several articles as early as 1927. The Amateur Radio Society has been an active participant in the EMC Society ever since.
Gene was very active in the IEEE and in particular the EMC Society where he was on the Board of Directors and served as the Society President from 1984 thru 1985. Gene was interested in many endeavors and collected many technical publications; so much so that when the EMC Society Historian was looking for a complete set of technical literature spanning the years of IRE PGRFI through the current EMC Society, Gene volunteered to give his collection for the generation of a CD-ROM. The 1997 EMC S CD-ROM containing 40 years of EMC Symposia papers including the Armour Conference Proceedings went on sale at the EMC Symposium in Austin, Texas.
Gene asked that the hard copies of all his technical collection be donated to Georgia Technical Research Institute in Atlanta, Georgia.
Gene is survived by his wife of 51 years, Grace Anna Knowles, four sons, two daughters, twenty three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Gene used to say to some of us that we should go somewhere and “splice the main brace” once more.
— Len Carlson