Henry Charles Beck

Henry Charles (Hank) Beck, 92, engineer, oceanographer, and executive, a longtime resident of Walpole, NH died March 8, 2016 at Bentley Commons in Keene where he has resided for a brief period of time.

He was born in New York City on May 17, 1923, the son of Henry Fredric and Olga (Russ) Beck. He attended public schools before entering Columbia University where he graduated in 1943 with a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering.

Upon graduation he enlisted in the Navy and was commissioned at the Naval Academy in Annapolis. He served in WWII on Destroyer Escorts in both the Atlantic and Pacific fleets, earning four battle stars in operations in New Guinea, Borneo, the Philippines, and Okinawa. During the invasion at Linguayan Gulf in the Philippines his ship, the USS Chaffee (DE 230), was torpedoed by a Japanese aircraft attempting to torpedo the battleship USS Pennsylvania. The torpedo struck the bow of the Chaffee and passed through it without detonating. The Chaffee was awarded the Philippine Presidential Unit Citation for Conspicuous Action. Beck remained in the Naval Reserve for over twenty years after the war, retiring with the rank of Commander.

He returned to Columbia's Nevis Cyclotron Labs for the design and construction of what was then the world's most powerful atom smasher. While there he earned an M.S. degree in Industrial Management as well as a PE license. After completion of the cyclotron, he entered the industry as chief engineer and New York sales manager of a firm in the power press industry.

He was recruited by Columbia's Hudson Laboratories which was funded by the Office of Naval Research to conduct oceanographic research - the beginning of a 35 year career in this field. He served as Director of Engineering and received a faculty appointment. He spent much time at sea aboard the Lab's four vessels and at field stations on Fire Island, NY, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. During his 18+ year tenure he was awarded many patents and had many papers published covering his development of oceanographic instrumentation, acoustic projectors, and listening systems as well as structures, handling gear and winches. He served as Navy Program Manager for the conversion of a Navy seaplane tender to a research ship as well as for the design and construction of a catamaran research vessel whose design was also utilized as a submarine rescue vessel.

Beck pioneered the field of deep-ocean anchoring of ships to hold their positions for acoustic experiments in depths up to 20,000 feet and participated in the development of special winches, cables and handling gear to accomplish this. He was Navy Program Manager for the development of a dynamic position keeping system utilizing a bottom pinger, an array of listening hydrophones aboard ship and two huge rotatable outboard propulsion units to hold both position and heading automatically in deep water, a technology later used by the petroleum industry. He received a letter of commendation from the Navy for his efforts in the location of the sunken submarine, USS Thresher.

Although Hudson Labs efforts were aimed almost entirely on ensuring that the Navy could track every Russian submarine that posed a threat to the US, the takeover of the University by an anti-Viet Nam war student group prompted Columbia to shut down Hudson Labs' classified research.

In 1969 he responded to a call by the Naval Oceanographic Office to serve as the Special Assistant to the Director for engineering, and subsequently became the Director of Engineering and finally the Scientific & Technical Director of the Office as a member of the Senior Executive Service of the U.S. government. This organization utilized twelve dedicated ships, an air wing & satellites to support the operational Navy in performing hydrographic and deep ocean surveys, anti-submarine warfare and mine warfare work as well as R&D.

He was the point of contact between NOAA (Department of Commerce) and the Oceanographer of the Navy for engineering matters. He was a representative of the Oceanographer on a number of studies conducted by the Marine Board of the National Academy of Engineers and at numerous reviews conducted by the Office of Management & Budget. He had a lead role in the relocation of the Office to a NASA base on the Mississippi gulf coast. During his 16 years here he received many awards, medals and citations, culminating in a Distinguished Executive award for his leadership in restructuring and modernizing the Office in its new location. The Federal Women's Program honored him with its first Navy Mentor award.

During his busy professional life he was active as a Boy Scout leader and Commissioner in New York State. He served as a member of the Architectural Control Commission in Fairfax County VA and as Chairman of the Roads and Drainage Committee in St. Tammany Parish, LA.

He retired as the Navy's senior civilian oceanographer in 1985. He always enjoyed travel during and subsequent to his active career, visiting over 120 countries and all 50 of the United States. He pursued a lifelong interest in birding, fishing, and boating, with many trips to British Columbia, Alaska, Quebec, and the southern tier of states. As a result of his retirement in New Hampshire he became interested in the state's postal history and wrote numerous articles in the Granite Post, of the New Hampshire Postal History Society, which he served for many years as a Member of the Board of Directors.

He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Gloria (Grano) Beck; his daughter, Dr. Jacqueline Toner and son-in-law Dr. Eric Toner of Baltimore, MD; his son, Henry Richard Beck of Walpole; and three Toner granddaughters, Dr. Kaitlin Raimi of Ann Arbor, MI, Dr. Kendra Barrett, and Rhianna Toner both of Baltimore, MD.

Services for Mr. Beck will be private. Foley Funeral Home (www.foleyfuneralhome.com) of Keene is assisting the family with arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests for those who wish, donations may be made in Mr. Beck's memory to the New Hampshire Audubon Society, 84 Silk Farm Road, Concord, NH 03301.