Cleveland Hopkins
OccupationElectrical engineer
NationalityAmerican

Proposed title of this page: Cleveland Hopkins

(This will require a disambiguation page for Cleveland Hopkins)

Summary heading:

Cleveland Hopkins was an electrical engineer who contributed to the development of pulse radar, a technology that is still used to guide landing aircraft. He was in charge of strategic planning for the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar system which was set up to detect incoming Soviet bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles during the Cold War.

Cleveland Hopkins is not associated with the Cleveland Hopkins airport, which was named after its founder, William R. Hopkins.


Biography

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Cleveland Hopkins was born in Santa Rosa, California, on Sept. 8, 1910, to Charles Blodgett and Lucia (Cleveland) Hopkins. [1]

<< Why does he have the name Hopkins? >>

Hopkins attended Redlands University in Redlands, California, and completed a BS in Electrical Engineering at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, in 1933. When World War II broke out, he was recruited for classified research at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in Cambridge, Massachusetts. There, he and several other scientists developed pulse radar technology, which is still used to guide landing aircraft.


Hopkins was married to Lillian Christine Hopkins MacKenzie on Aug. 11, 1945, in Boston, Massachusetts. They would be married for 58 years.

In 1951, Hopkins took a position at the Pentagon in the office for Operations Analysis with the Air Force. At that time, he developed plans for airborne early warning systems to protect the U.S. from the threat of Soviet attack. With his knowledge of radar and operations analysis technologies, he was quickly promoted to the lead of the Operations Analysis office of the Alaskan Air Command, in charge of strategic planning for the Distant Early Warning (DEW) radar system that was the first line of U.S. air defense. [2]

Hopkins continued his career in operations research and analysis with a variety of government agencies, including the National Bureau of Standards (NIST), Office of Technology Assessment, Office of Telecommunications Policy, the FAA, and the Naval Research Laboratory.


Hopkins spent his retirement at Prescott, Arizona. He had many hobbies including his computer, photography, woodworking, ham radio, geology, camping, and hiking. Amateur astronomy was his favorite. During retirement, he constructed a 14-inch reflector telescope with its own observatory at his home in Prescott. [3]

Cleveland and Lillian Hopkins had four children: Janet David, Nancy Johnson Haan, Douglas Hopkins, and John Hopkins.


Professional Associations

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Hopkins was a life member of TIMS/ORSA, a Senior Member of the IEEE and the Society of Professional Engineers, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a registered Professional Engineer in the District of Columbia, and a member of the National Capitol Astronomers Association and the American Scientific Affiliation. He authored or co-authored 57 articles in professional journals.


References

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  1. ^ Cleveland Hopkins obituary [1]
  2. ^ Wikipedia: Distant Early Warning Line
  3. ^ Son Douglas's description of Hopkin's telescope in Prescott [2]
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  • Letter from Hopkins to Deardorf and Sons [[3]]