Hugh Robert Carlon

Dr. Hugh Robert Carlon was born on October 4, 1934 in Camden, NJ. He was raised in Yeadon, PA, a Philadelphia suburb, and graduated from Yeadon High School in 1952. He earned his B.S. in chemical engineering from Drexel University in 1957, an M.S. in systems engineering from George Washington University in 1971, and a doctorate in physics in 1979 through a unique international program. In 1986-87 while working at the University of Manchester in England on a U.S. Secretary of the Army Research Fellowship, he also became eligible for the prestigious Doctor of Science degree. But he chose not to use his titles, preferring to be called “Hugh” by all of those who knew him.

Dr. Carlon was a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and was selected to serve on the staff of the Chief of Engineers in his Washington, DC headquarters. There, Dr. Carlon learned about Edgewood Arsenal, MD. He became employed at Edgewood as an engineer in 1958, where he spent his entire career in what is now known as the U.S. Army Edgewood Research, Development and Engineering Center (ERDEC). In 1959 he married Catherine Danzeisen in Yeadon, PA. They lived in Bel Air and were active for many years in the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd where Dr. Carlon was a councilman and co-chairman of the building committee. During these years Dr. Carlon also researched and wrote an extensive, hard-bound volume of family history including more than 1000 individuals. Today the book is found in over 100 libraries worldwide.

Dr. Carlon was an invited scientist working with the British Ministry of Defense on a special project. He developed a lifelong love for England and things English, traveling there and throughout the world frequently.

His technical publications totaled about 300 and included about 30 United States patents, many dozens of scientific papers in international journals, over 100 official technical reports, many reports of special studies, presentations before international groups published in proceedings, and a wide variety of articles for special uses. Dr. Carlon was a registered Professional Engineer in Maryland and in 1992, the U.S. Army Material Command named him “AMC Engineer of the Year”. This led to his nomination to a nationwide competition among professional engineers, and he was named among the “Top Ten Federal Engineers” in America that year. He received countless honors and awards during his long career. Some include two Department of the Army Research and Development Achievement Awards, about 50 patent awards, and the Major General Leslie Earl Simon Award for outstanding Scientific achievement, with decoration. In addition to being a U.S. Army Research Fellow, he was an elected Fellow of The Royal Meteorological Society (UK), an appointee to the International Commission on Atmospheric Electricity, an adjunct professor of physics at Howard University, and on the editorial board of an international journal. He will be best remembered for his 30 years of work on molecular structure in water vapor-the so called “water clusters”. In his final years great notice was taken of his body of results, and his findings were beginning to be taught in universities especially to students of cloud physics.

He was a member of Sigma Xi, the Optical Society of America, the American Institute of Physics, and the Mensa Society. He was listed in 14 biographical directories, including a special edition of Who’s Who in America.
Hugh did many things to help others. In the 1980’s he conceived and established a program of international cooperation between schools in his hometown Yeadon, PA, and corresponding schools in Yeadon, West Yorkshire, England; in the process, this required that he meet personally with the Lord Mayor of Leeds. The links were forged, and visitors back and forth have kept the “twinning” alive. Students write to their “own” counterparts, and exchanges have included art shows. The Yeadon High School Alumni Association, in June 1994 on behalf of his “Yeadon-to-Yeadon” initiative, awarded Dr. Carlon its Distinguished Alumnus Award for Humanitarianism. In 1995, the United States embassy in New Delhi, India, invited Dr. Carlon to come at their expense to India under the “Rupee Fund.” He was asked to assist the University of Pune in setting up and modernizing their cloud physics department, and to assist in the training of doctoral-level students. Dr. Carlon continued to do this, after his visit, by maintaining daily contact between India and Edgewood via electronic mail. While in India, he was asked to make tutorial tapes on cloud physics in the studios of Indian national television. These were subsequently aired throughout India.

Dr. Carlon is survived by his wife Catherine (Danzeisen) Carlon, four children, Pamela Carlon, Suzanne McGill, David Carlon, and Diana Dyer; son-in-law James Dyer; and 7 grandchildren, London and Keaton McGill, Madison, McCain, Mason, Mitchell and Mollie Kate Dyer.