A Tribute

Last month at the Annual Banquet the IRE bestowed five important awards bearing the names of outstanding men of their times: Morris N. Liebmann, Browder J. Thompson, Harry Diamond, Vladimir K. Zworykin, and W. R. G. Baker. In paying tribute each year to these awards and to those who receive these high honors, we are apt to lose sight of the five men for whom the awards are named. Accordingly, brief sketches of their careers have been published on the following pages, in the order in which the awards were founded, in the belief that their lives will provide both inspiration and a better appreciation of the awards. These personalized accounts represent considerably more than the usual biographies. They were prepared by persons uniquely qualified by long and close personal association to give us the true character of these men and the significance of their accomplishments. For these labors of love we are deeply indebted to: Emil J. Simon, a Charter Member of the IRE whose personal donation to the IRE made possible the establishment of the Morris N. Liebmann Memorial Prize; Edward L. Bowles, expert consultant to the Secretary of War during World War II, out of whose office Browder J. Thompson was working at the time he was killed while on a special mission; Wilbur S. Hinman, Jr., Technical Director of the Diamond Ordnance Fuze Laboratories, 1956 recipient of the Harry Diamond Memorial Award, and a close associate of Harry Diamond during the latter´s 20-year career at the National Bureau of Standards; Irving Wolff, Vice-President, Research, of RCA Laboratories, where he has been a close associate of Vladimir K. Zworykin for a quarter of a century, and Arthur V. Loughren, who as a radio receiver design engineer, and later as Vice-Chairman of the National Television System Committee and Director and Past President of the IRE has enjoyed an intimate professional association with W. R. G. Baker for more than 15 years.