I first met Henry around 2004-5, when I attended one of the many 3-day seminars he lectured. I found his lecture style brilliant, thanks to his ability to break the most complex of problems into the many fundamental concepts that might be at play, and to address each of those concepts in a manner that made them understandable to those of us working in very different EE disciplines. 

I later got to know him a bit -- he attended one of my workshops on EMC in pro audio at an IEEE conference, I arranged for him to give invited lectures to the Audio Engineering Society at national conventions, and we shared a couple of dinners over the years.  He was a silent member of the AES Standards Committee Working Group on EMC, of which I served as Vice-Chair.

As an educator, Henry's approach was to find the simplest possible way to study complex problems. He was an absolute master of it. In that 3-day workshop, it became clear to me that in his consulting work for many major corporations, he had studied many complex problems, and analyzed them from every possible perspective -- business, the impact of fundamental principles on future development, manufacturing, design, production engineering.  As only one example, in that 2004-5 workshop, he observed that a fundamental limitation on processing speed was the velocity of propagation on the chips and on interconnecting circuitry. 

RIP, Henry. You done a lot of good here on earth!

Jim Brown  FAES
Santa Cruz, CA

I only knew Mr Ott by his famous writings in 1975 on Electromagnetic Interference, when I graduated as an Electrical Engineer starting in Aerospace, then Telecom then Test Engineering Magnetic HDD's then microwave automated meter reading.

I have never forgotten his precise brilliant gift of education.  In our common language his noise ratio is like a crystal wine glass resonating more than 75 dB and has not stopped ringing.  
I hope his associates can live up to his standards.

I’m very sorry to hear about Henry’s passing. I only had the opportunity to meet with him briefly a couple of times but it was clear that in addition to being a great man, he was also a wonderful human being. 

Henry was a wonderful caring person, who was very practical with his smarts.

I am grateful he was my mentor and I owe a debt of gratitude to him.

May he forever rest in peace!


Mr. Ott's book is one of the finest books written in the field of EMC. 

Thank you Mr. Ott for everything you have done to the SI/PI/EMC community. You will continue to live on through your book.

My sincere condolences to Mr. Ott's family. 

Henry was a great teacher, and I remember  the in-duck-dance cartoons he used in teaching! We enjoyed it when he visited our chapter!
Henry talked positively about his wife;  at our Southeastern Michigan IEEE EMC Antenna class in September 2005, he said that he  called his wife with his cell phone and no one else! 

I first met Henry at the IEEE International Symposium on EMC in Boulder, Colorado in 1981.  I was very impressed with his knowledge and teaching style then, and that did not change over the decades.  When citing references in my presentations over the years I always included his books as places the attendees should look for more information as they were outstanding sources.  Henry will be missed by all who had the honor of meeting and knowing him.

It was Patrick André's and my great honor to have Henry write the foreword for our first book on EMC troubleshooting! Henry was a great influence on my own career as an EMC engineer and educator. He'll be greatly missed.

OBITUARY

Henry W. Ott, Jr.

March 23, 1936 – May 20, 2021

Quinn-Hopping Funeral Home

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