The H600 Project Genealogy DB

James Brown Fisk

Male 1910 - 1981  (70 years)


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  • Name James Brown Fisk 
    Born 30 Aug 1910  West Warwick, Kent Co, Rhode Island, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Male 
    Died 10 Aug 1981  Elizabethtown, Essex Co, New York, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I33109  A00 Hoar and Horr Families North America
    Last Modified 12 Feb 2012 

    Father Henry James Fisk 
    Mother Bertha Brown,   b. 10 Apr 1884, , Providence Co, Rhode Island, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Married 5 Feb 1908  , Providence Co, Rhode Island, USA Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F23861  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Cynthia Hoar,   b. 17 Apr 1915, Concord, Middlesex Co, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 4 Oct 1991, Boxborough, Middlesex Co, Massachusetts, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 76 years) 
    Married Jun 1938 
    Last Modified 12 Feb 2012 
    Family ID F12997  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • [[
      Obituary:
      Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA) - August 12, 1981
      Deceased Name: JAMES BROWN FISK, WAS HEAD OF BELL LABS
      By Burr Van Atta
      Inquirer Staff Writer
      James Brown Fisk, 70, a scientist whose work led to the development of
      transistors, solar power and long- range radar, died Monday at the
      Elizabethtown, N.Y., Hospital. Mr. Fisk, formerly of Basking Ridge, N.J.,
      lived in Keen Valley, N.Y.
      Mr. Fisk, a physicist and a mathematician, headed the prestigious Bell
      Telephone Laboratories for more than a decade. He entered public service early
      in his career and frequently represented the United States before the United
      Nations and in arms-control negotiations with the Soviet Union.
      He was born in West Warwick, R.I. Mr. Fisk studied physics at the
      Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received his doctorate in
      1936. After a fellowship at Cambridge University in England, he joined Bell
      Labs in 1939.
      During World War II, he directed research at Bell on high-frequency radar.
      The work led to research into solid state electronics. That, in turn, led to
      two great technological developments - the transistor, which revolutionized
      communications and made possible the modern computer, and a solar device that
      converts sunlight to electrical power.
      It was during the wartime period that Mr. Fisk and another Bell scientist,
      Dr. William Shockley, worked out one of the first complete mathematical
      computations for an atomic reactor. The work was incorporated into the data
      used by the Atomic Energy Commission when it was created in 1946. Mr. Fisk
      became the commission's first director of research.
      He rejoined Bell Labs in 1949 and rose through the ranks of scientists to
      become president and then chairman of the board.
      In 1958 President Dwight D. Eisenhower selected him to represent the United
      States in the opening round of talks with the Soviets on international arms
      control and international inspections. Out of the talks came the sound- and
      radiation-detection systems used for the last 20 years in detecting nuclear
      explosions.
      He was chairman of the U.S. technical delegation at the Geneva Nuclear Test
      Ban Conference.
      According to his associates, Mr. Fisk was a good-humored man with a broad
      knowledge of science and the world, a man not easily frustrated and one who
      had a story for any and every occasion. Those qualities, they said, made him
      the perfect negotiator.
      They described him as calm, unassuming, sensitive and tolerant of others'
      views. No table-pounder, he was inclined to sit back and let others express
      their views before he gave his.
      Said one associate, " Dr. Fisk has patience to the extent that it gets on my
      nerves."
      Mr. Fisk was a member of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Corp. for
      19 years. He was active on the boards of directors of some of the nation's
      major firms, including the Cummins Engine Co., American Cyanamid Co.; the
      Equitable Life Assurance Society, Corning Glass Works; Nepune International
      Co. and General American Investors Co. Inc.
      He was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee and served on
      the boards of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan
      Foundation, the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and the board
      of overseers of Harvard.
      Mr. Fisk was a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the American Academy
      of Arts and Sciences and the Institute of Radio Engineers and was a member of
      the National Academy of Science, the American Philosophic Society and the
      Harvard and Ausable clubs.
      Surviving are his wife, Cynthia Hoar Fisk, and three sons, Samuel, Charles
      and Zachary.
      Funeral services will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday at the Keene Valley
      Congregational Church in Keene Valley, N.Y.