DAVID RICHARD KIRSHNER

KIRSHNER, David Richard "Dick" 93, Of Sudbury, MA, died peacefully on November 4, at the Belmont Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Belmont, MA. Born in New York City in 1919, Kirshner attended New York public schools, graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School at the age of 16 and University College, NYU, in 1939 with a degree in physics. An avid learner and amateur radio operator with call sign W1KNW, he pursued postgraduate studies at NYU's College of Engineering. A man of quick perception and outstanding verbal skill, he changed direction to attend law school at St. Lawrence University in New York City, and was within a semester of graduation when Pearl Harbor was attacked. This event changed his life, as it did for many of his generation. The next day, on December 8, 1941, he presented himself at the Church Street recruiting office to enlist in the U.S. Navy. Because he had earned commercial radiotelephone and radiotelegraph licenses (and his vision was too poor to serve as a naval deck officer), he was assigned to the US Army Signal Corps in Fort Monmouth, NJ. There, as a civilian, he carried out a series of assignments that employed his knowledge of radio technology, including radio direction-finding to identify clandestine transmitters of enemy spies. One of his more agreeable assignments was to instruct young women college graduates recruited for the war effort to assemble navigational devices. That is where he met his liveliest, if not most precise, student, Virginia Klarman of Hamden, Connecticut. They were married in 1945, and Kirshner continued his work defending the country by applying knowledge of science as a supervisory electronics engineer for the US Army in New Jersey. They started a family, with John born in 1946, and Robert, born in 1949. In 1950, the young family moved to Rome, New York, where Kirshner worked as a civilian at the Rome Air Development Center at Griffiss Air Force Base. He helped define air traffic control at the dawn of the jet age and helped develop airport surface radar of the type now seen atop every major control tower to assure safe operations even at night or in fog. The growing family, with twins Patricia and William arriving in 1952, was deeply involved in the Rome community, forming lifelong friendships there. Virginia acted in and directed amateur theater-and gently persuaded Dick to narrate the televised Fort Stanwix Day pageant. Dick was a charismatic leader of a Boy Scout troop for children from the base, whose fathers were sometimes absent on long missions. The family moved to Sudbury in 1957; Kirshner was employed briefly by the Raytheon Corporation, and then MIT Lincoln Laboratory, joining the MITRE Corporation as one of its first employees in 1958. In 1961, their fifth child, Sarah, was born. Dick Kirshner worked as a Systems Engineer at MITRE for almost 30 years on a wide range of projects including high-altitude surveillance drones and the SAGE defense system, an early application using computers to control fast-changing events. He wrote technical articles on these precursors to today's civil and military applications. He was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers, earned his Amateur Extra class license (W1QO,) and led the MITRE radio club. Dick Kirshner's deepest belief was in the power of education to improve life. He encouraged his children to aim high, and cheerfully sacrificed in ways large and small to pay for all five children to attend excellent colleges. He took great pride in their personal and professional accomplishments. When John died suddenly in 1983, the Kirshner family established a prize for students of history at the Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, from which all the children had graduated, and where Virginia worked as a teacher. Dick and Virginia were tireless workers for the LSRHS scholarship fund, creating educational opportunities for local students. Dick provided essential logistical support for Virginia's many community theatre activities in Sudbury and Concord, Sudbury town politics, and theater at Lincoln-Sudbury, where she directed award-winning student productions. Virginia always cited his willingness to let her "do her thing" among Dick's sterling characteristics as a husband and father. After his retirement from MITRE in 1986, and during Virginia's illness in the early 1990s, Dick took on the tasks of chauffeur, cook, and caretaker with quiet resolve. Virginia Kirshner died in 1992, and Dick lived quietly in Sudbury, noting with great pride and a little amusement that neighbors thought he had donated the money for the Kirshner Auditorium at Lincoln-Sudbury, in fact named to honor Virginia for her service to the school. Kirshner is survived by his children Robert of Cambridge MA, and Friendship, ME; Patricia of New York City, William of North Bend, WA; and Sarah of Belmont, MA; his grandchildren, Rebecca Sinclair and great granddaughter Esmeralda, and Matthew Kirshner of Los Angeles, CA; Hannah Kirshner and Owen Kirshner of New York City; and Rosie Fatt of Belmont, MA, and is remembered fondly by his many nieces, nephews, neighbors, and friends for his kindness and unique humor. His warm regard for his fellow citizens and for his family made him a rich man. Donations in honor of Dick Kirshner may be directed to the Lincoln-Sudbury Scholarship Fund or to the Parmenter Visiting Nurses Assoc.