Great Engineers & Scientists

Carroll G. Killen, Jr. was a distinguished electrical engineer who worked for the Sprague Electric Company in North Adams, Massachusetts for 40 years. Rising through the ranks from field engineer to senior vice president, he led Sprague Electric to develop mission-critical components for both national defense and space exploration.

From Natchitoches to New Jersey

Carroll Killen was born in Natchitoches, Louisiana in 1919. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Physics from Louisiana Northwestern State College in 1938, and a graduate degree in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana State University in 1940. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, he served in the South Pacific as a First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army for two years.

As part of the war effort, Carroll Killen also worked at Watson Laboratories in Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, then the Army's most important electronics facility. Named after Colonel Paul E. Watson, former chief engineer of an Army Signal Corps research group there, Watson Labs worked closely with Westinghouse Corporation to develop the Army's first radar systems.

Sprague's HYREL Capacitors

In 1947, Carroll Killen became a field engineer for the Sprague Electric Company, a manufacturer of capacitors and other electronic components. Working at the company's facility in North Adams, Massachusetts, Killen helped to develop the first of Sprague's highly-reliable HYREL capacitor product lines. These passive electronic components, reported A. Tiezzi in 1959, included impregnated-paper, metalized-paper, tantalum-electrolytic, and ceramic capacitors that demonstrated "trends . . . toward reliability, low voltage, and automation".

During the 1950s and 1960s, HYREL capacitors were used in Minuteman and Polaris missiles as well the Gemini and Apollo space programs. The Minuteman, the U.S. Air Force's first solid-fuel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), featured an all-inertial guidance system. The Polaris, a two-stage submarine launched ballistic missile (SLBM) developed for the U.S. Navy, also relied upon Sprague-built components. "As Sprague's involvement in government programs increased", Tahir Rahman wrote in 2009, some 53,000 Sprague components were used in the Apollo 11 spacecraft that first landed men on the Moon in 1969.

Distinguished DoD Consultant

For nearly 25 years (1949 – 1973), Carroll G. Killen, Jr. worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), serving on the Advisory Group on Electronic Parts (AGEP) and the Advisory Group on Electronic Devices (AGED). As a member of the DoD's Parts Specification for Reliability Study Group, Killen guided the department's implementation of an important parts management program. "The recommendations of this group," writes the Times-Union of Albany, New York, "exerted major impact on operations in both government and the electronic industry."

For his efforts, Killen and other members of the committee received an award from the IRE Professional Group on Reliability and Quality Control in 1961. Now defunct, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was a professional organization from 1912 until 1963, when it merged with the American Institute of Electrical engineers (AIEE) to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Later, Carroll G. Killen would become a Life Senior Member of the IEEE.

To the Top and Beyond

In 1960, Sprague promoted Carroll G. Killen, Jr. to Vice President of Military and Industrial Sales. Later, the Natchitoches native served as director of both the Sprague Electric Company and Sprague/Goodman Electronics Corporation. While serving as president of the Tantalum International Study Center, a Brussels-based nonprofit organization whose mission is to increase awareness of tantalum and other metals used in electronics applications, Killen also served as director for Cera-Mite, a global supplier of ceramic capacitors that is now part of Vishay.

Until his retirement from Sprague in 1985, Carroll Killen was a trustee of the National Security Industrial Association (NSIA). He was also a member of the American Defense Preparedness Association, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, the American Management Association, the Sales Executives Club of New York, and the Newcomen Society. Then he began a new phase of career. At Tansitor Electronics in nearby Bennington, Vermont, Killen worked as general manager and was elected a director and vice president of marketing and sales.

Killen retired from Tansitor in 2000 and later made his home in Slingerlands, New York. Following a brief illness, Carroll G. Killen, Jr. died on September 29, 2009.

CR4 Remembers

This biography would not have been possible without jerrkowa, who brought the distinguished career of Carroll Killen to CR4's attention. When asked by this blogger to share some anecdotes about his former co-worker, jerrkowa recalled a decisive and loyal colleague whose company the CR4 community would have enjoyed.

Once, while traveling with Killen at one of New York City's airports, jerrkowa found himself towards the back of a line at a security checkpoint. "I was so far back," he recalled, that "I would have missed the flight except that he (Killen) got out of line and grabbed me, escorting me to the front of the line". Years later, "when Sprague started collapsing in 1984", Killen began sending recruiters jerrkowa's way. "The job I ended up with resulted from one of his leads".

Resources:

http://www.theinstitute.ieee.org/portal/site/tionline/menuitem.130a3558587d56e8fb2275875bac26c8/index.jsp?&pName=institute_level1_article&TheCat=1018&article=tionline/legacy/inst2009/nov09/inmemoriam.xml&;jsessionid=gxzZLGYJJRpkhRl7JTskvPYFQMnqst6G2Hblc2gwYzffpgTLJdgd!675031873!109377755

http://www.allbusiness.com/government/government-bodies-offices-government/13180598-1.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institute_of_Radio_Engineers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_E._Watson

http://www.springerlink.com/content/v13q0q6h66711251/

http://www.strategic-air-command.com/missiles/Minuteman/Minuteman_Missile_History.htm

http://www.vishay.com/company/brands/cera-mite/

Additional Reading:

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/2733/The-Sprague-Electric-Company-s-Long-Goodbye-Part-1

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/2742/The-Sprague-Electric-Company-s-Long-Goodbye-Part-2

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/2903/The-Sprague-Electric-Company-s-Long-Goodbye-Part-3

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/2981/The-Sprague-Electric-Company-s-Long-Goodbye-Part-4