Robert G. Walden papers

Robert G. Walden was a Senior Research Specialist in Buoy Engineering at WHOI. He was born in Milford, MA, and served as a petty officer in the U.S. Navy before joining the WHOI staff in 1946 as a radio operator and technician for John Churchill, then port captain. Following specialized training in radar and signal work form the Air Force and the Navy, Bob Walden was named a Research Associate in 1954 and was promoted to Research Specialist with the title of Electronics Engineer in 1964.

While at WHOI, Walden led an engineering group whose task was to design and perfect ocean moorings and instrumentation, including telemetered data transmission. He worked with Hank Stommel, John Swallow and many other oceanographers around the world. Upon his retirement in 1985, Bob Walden received the Meritorious Public Service Award, the highest civilian award granted by the Office of Naval Research, for "exceptional public service in his career as an ocean engineer devoted to the development of oceanographic deep-sea moorings and buoys." He was the author or co-author of forty-five technical publications, and held a patent (with others) on an air-sea-rescue-drift buoy.

Walden died on August 15, 1996.

Taken from Walden's obituary in the July/August 1996 issue of the WHOI Newsletter.