Richard F. Merian

Richard F. Merian passed away October 21, 2009, at his home in Kingston. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio, August 24, 1928, to Louis Holmes Merian and Claire Perkins Merian. He grew up in Willoughby, Ohio, where he began his life-long love of aviation at the age of l2 when he started work at Squires Aircraft at the LakeCountyAirport and was taught to fly by local barnstormers even though he was much too young to have a license. Merian attended KenyonCollege, Gambier, Ohio, on an academic scholarship, and BostonUniversity, earning degrees in physics. He joined the United States Air Force in l949, graduating from Jet Fighter School two days before the outbreak of the Korean War. He was assigned as a young lieutenant to the 335th Squadron, 4th Fighter Group, which took the first F-86 Sabres into combat in December l950. Later he was assigned to the 27th Fighter Squadron, lst Fighter Group, and was very proud that he had served with two of the most historic and storied units in the United States Air Force.. After l0 years in the Air Force, first as a fighter pilot and then as a physicist with the Air Force Special Weapons Center, where he studied the effects of nuclear radiation and participated in nuclear bomb tests at the Nevada Test Site and in the South Pacific, Merian joined EG&G, Inc., then under the leadership of its founder Dr. Harold Edgerton. With EG&G he participated in the development of the SR 71 Blackbird, the first radar-black airplane on a project headed by Kelly Johnson, Director of Lockheed Martin’s Skunk Works. Moving into management, he served as president of companies in Santa Barbara, CA, Albuquerque, NM, San Antonio, TX, and Oak Ridge, TN (EG&G ORTEC). He later joined Applied Research Laboratories, based in Lausanne, Switzerland, and headed ARL plants in California and Switzerland. After retirement he and his wife Sally moved back to East Tennessee where he enjoyed boating, woodworking, traveling, and flying. A high point of his retirement was the building of his own plane and, with Sally, flying it on trips around the country. He is survived by his wife Sally, sons and daughters-in-law Jeff and Rina Merian of Oak Ridge and Joel and Amy Rosenberg of Cordova, TN, daughter and son-in-law Michelle and Glen Oelrich of Las Vegas, NV, daughter Susan Merian Tresch of Olympia, WA, grandchildren Shelby Schoenborn, Paul Van Voris, Eva Spahn, Richard and Isaac Merian, and Max and Porter Rosenberg, great-grandchild Chloe Schoenborn, brother and sister-in-law Robert and Sadie Merian of Vero Beach, FL, sister-in-law and husband Susan and Steve Cooper of Jacksonville, FL, and dear friends and travel companions Reid and Carolyn Franks of Townsend. Internment will be 1:30pmMonday October 26, 2009 at the Tennessee Veteran’s Cemetery in Knoxville. The family requests that in lieu of flowers memorials be given to KenyonCollege, Gambier, Ohio23022, or to the Roane County Heritage Commission, P.O. Box 738, Kingston, TN37763.

Richard F. Merian

August 24, 1928 - October 21, 2009