Dr. Franz A.P. Frisch

Dr. Franz A.P. Frisch, Professor of Engineering Management (ret.), died on November 19, 2005, of cardiac arrest at the Rankin Medical Center in Brandon, MS. He was 86. Frisch was one of a handful of persons awarded the title of professor emeritus at Defense Systems Management College (DSMC, now the Defense Acquisition University). Frisch retired from the DSMC in 1998 as director of the Technical Management Department, teaching graduate-level courses in defense acquisition management. He was a highly regarded mentor and director of research projects, and an expert on the economics of the United States maintaining armed forced in Europe. Frisch, with co-author Wilbur D. Jones, Jr. (Captain, U.S. Navel Reserve, ret.), published Condemned to Live; A Panzer Artilleryman s Five-Front War in 1999, his memoirs of his time as a common solider of the German army for seven years during World War II. He spent two years in an American POW camp when he was captured in Italy in 1945. He and his family immigrated to the U.S. in 1958 after he delivered two years of expert testimony on European shipbuilding technology and costs before the U.S. Maritime Administration. Frisch received his bachelor of mechanical engineering degree in 1950, his Diplom-Ingenieur (Master of Science) as a professional engineer in naval architecture and marine engineering in 1952, and his Doktor der Technischen Wissenschaft (Doctor of Technical Sciences) in 1971, all from the Technical University of Vienna in Austria. In Europe his career culminated as head of the department of shipyard maintenance and planning in the Howaldtwerke Hamburg (HWH) shipyard in Hamburg, Germany. From 1958 to 1963, Frisch was associated with several naval architect firms in New York City and Washington, D.C., on projects primarily for the Maritime Administration, and with shipyards and companies in Brazil, Japan, and Europe. In 1963, he moved to Fairfax, Virginia and joined the Center for Naval Analysis in Alexandria as a consultant and scientific advisor to the U.S. Naval Sea Systems Command s (NAVSEA) PM-10 program management office, the LHA amphibious assault ship and AGC amphibious command ship project offices. He developed the plans for the new FDL fast logistics ship. From 1968 to 1974, he taught marine engineering and engineering management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and consulted on shipyard projects in Dubai. He also taught at Virginia Tech and Central Michigan University. In 1973, Frisch joined the staff of NAVSEA in Arlington, VA, and in 1978 he joined the faculty of DSMC as a professor of engineering management. Dr. Frisch was born August 23, 1919, in Vienna, Austria. He married Gertraud Schriener (deceased in 2003) in 1953. He is survived by three daughters: Elisabeth M. Brandt of Ranch Murieta, CA, Inga Estes of Santa Monica, CA, and B. Veronika Mott of Ridgeland, MS, and by two grandchildren. Donations in Dr. Frischs name can be made to the Mississippi Humanities Council, Family Literacy Programs, 3825 Ridgewood Road, Room 311, Jackson, MS 39211