Richard Melville Jr

Served 10 years as a Naval Aviator, during which time I flew from carriers and had some interesting shore duty including 2 years at the Naval Postgraduate School where I earned an MS in Physics in 1967.

Left the Navy in 1970 and enrolled at CalTech, where I received an MSEE in 1971 and Ph. D. in EE in 1975.

Most of my civilian career was spent in the "think tank" arena assisting the government in laser weaponry and in reconnaisance and surveillance systems for national security.

I did work at JPL for a short time and designed a system for testing the guidance system for the Hubble Telescope.

Also was with TRW as the manager of a department that designed and built a variety of sensors for spacecraft.

My family arrived in San Marino in 1950. I attended Huntington School, SPJHS and what was then SP-SM HS, graduating in 1955.

After graduating from USC in January, 1960, I spent 10 years on active duty in the Navy and lived in: Pensacola, FL; Kingsville, TX; San Diego, CA; Monterey, CA, and Minneapolis, MN.

After leaving the Navy in 1970, I lived in San Marino from 1970 until 1991. Then moved to Sun Valley, ID and finally to Medford, OR in 2002.

Nothing exotic, I'm afraid.

My fondest memories are of Miss Burr's Spanish classes and Mr. Steimle's Physics class.

One thing that I remember is being apprehended by Vice Principal Fouts in an alley accross from the school shooting dice with several other miscreants who shall remain nameless. Mr. Fouts asked "What are you boys doing?" Of course we thought it was fairly obvious what we were doing and one of the boys said "We are shooting dice, would you like to join in?" I think we were all "suspended" from school for three days.

In this group were 2 future Ph. D.'s, a CPA and a regional director for the FAA.

I guess you never know how things will turn out.

My main pastimes at present are golf and I am learning to play electric bass guitar and double bass (bull fiddle). I still ski and occasionally play tennis.