Abstract :
George W. Younkin passed away at age 87 on 17 October 2011. He was a Life Fellow Member of the IEEE and a member of SME and the National Society of Professional Engineers. He served as the IEEE Industry Applications Society (IAS) chapter chair, IAS secretary (1972), IAS vice president and program chair for the 1973 IAS Annual Meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and IAS president in 1974. He was the chair of the Industrial Control Committee and Machine Tools Industry Committee. In addition, he was the cofounder of the IAS Drives Committee in 1974 and, later, served as the committee chair. He was awarded the 1984 IEEE Standards Medallion for his effort as working group chair in the publication of IEEE Standard 518 and the 1984 IEEE Centennial Medallion. In 1988, he was awarded the IAS Distinguished Service Award, and in 1991, he was elected to the grade of IEEE Fellow. He was awarded the IEEE Third Millennium Medal in 2000. The second edition of his book, Industrial Servo Control Systems: Fundamentals and Applications, was published in 2002. At the 2002 IAS Annual Meeting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was awarded a Plaque for Leadership and Service for the Industrial Automation and Control Committee. In 2006, he was awarded the IEEE Richard Harold Kaufmann Technical Field Award "for innovative design of industrial and commercial numerical control systems and process control." A brief professional biography is provided.
