The Story of Robert H. Courtney
I have no clue how this book ended up in my hands, but it’s fortunate that it did. The book “Radio Engineering” by Frederick Terman, published in 1937, and it is an excellent text that reflects the progression of electromagnetic engineering and our applications of that knowledge. But this book was not originally mine, but rather the personal copy of one Lt. Robert H. Courtney Jr.
Photo of “Radio Engineering” by Frederick Terman, published 1937
Photo of Robert H. Courtney’s signature in the cover of the book
Robert was born in Suffolk County, Boston, Massachusetts in February 1920. He spent his youth in Richmond Virginia, where he developed a love for electronics. He was a US Army Air Force Veteran, and he served in North Africa in 1946, at the ripe age of 16! He went on to attend Virginia Tech and earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, and then attended the University of Virginia where he earned a master’s degree in mathematics. He then taught electrical engineering at the University of Virginia prior to starting his first job in the computing field with Hastings Instrument Company.
Photo of Virginia Tech and of the University of Virginia
Robert joined IBM in 1960, where he would work until he retired in 1981. While Robert was at IBM he served as the initial manager of the Intelligence Systems Center in Washington DC. This office made available to the US intelligence community the diversity of skills, talents, and disciplines required of the private sector. He later transferred to IBM’s Kingston NY Laboratory to manage the development and introduction of CRT terminals into the commercial marketplace. In 1968 he was directed by IBM to establish an action plan to contain the then-growing concerns of legislative bodies and regulatory agencies for the of EDP on individual privacy.
Photo of the historic IBM Kingston, New York location. Robert worked here during its prime, but the Kingston location would eventually be closed in 1994 during IBM’s $8.9 Billion restructuring
Robert was a member of 23 federal, state, and local government and industry committees and task forces addressing data security and privacy issues. He was widely published in technical journals and in proceedings of numerous seminars and symposia. He was also the author of the National Bureau of Standard’s Federal Information Processing Standards on risk assessment, contingency planning and the selection of security measures. Robert was also a member of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Data Processing Manufacturers Association (DPMA) and the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE). Robert was an adjunct professor at the IBM Systems Research Institute in New York and taught cost-benefit relations to the internal IBM Business Control Classes. Upon his retirement from IBM, Robert founded and operated his own computer security consultant firm for the next 22 years. The firm was called Robert Courtney Inc., and was an independent consulting firm specializing in risk assessment, contingency planning, data security techniques, and particularly the more recent high technology areas involving data security.
Photo of the IBM Research Institute
Robert H. Courtney died at the age of 94 in Panama City, Florida in March 2014. From what I can tell he was a great engineer, educator, and lifelong learner, and from reading some of his publications I can tell he had a passion and love for his work. I don’t quite understand how a book from his library in Florida ended up in my local used bookstore in Alabama, but I’m happy it did.
Hope you learned something new, thanks for reading!
-Ethan