An entry in "American Men & Women of Science, Physical & Biological Sciences 16th edition Volume IV, Q-S; Edited by Jaques Cattell Press, R.R.Bowker Company, New York, 1986" reads as follows...
'RIPPERE, Ralph Elliott, b New York, NY, July 10, 1912; m 1940, 1974; children 3. PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY. Educated Columbia University, MA, 1935, PhD(phys chem), 1943; Am Inst Chem, cert, 1969. Professional Experience: Snr chemist, Aerovox Wireless Co, NY, 1934-37; teacher appl chem, Bd Educ New York, 1938-41 & 1946; research chemist, Comput Lab, California 1962-68, staff scientist, Processor Equip Dept, ariz, 1968-70; consultant, Circuit Systems Division, Rogers Corporation 1976-78; CONSULT, 1978- Mem: An Chem Soc; fel Am Inst Chemists; NY Acad Sci; Sigma Xi; Am Powder Metal Inst. Res: Borate compounds of glycols; production of silicon tetrachloride; analytical use of infrared; photoresist etching of films; metal recovery from effluents; electrodeposition metal powders for powder metallurgy. Mailing Add: 135 Avila Road, San Mateo, Ca 94402.'
A history of his life is recalled from memory by his daughter Vicky (Victoria Louise Rippere):
"Ralph Elliot Rippere, known in adult life as Rip, was the only child of Ralph Pratt Rippere and Elsie Siebeneichen Rippere. He was born in New York City and lived there, in the Bronx (at, I believe, 819 Union Street) until he left home as an adult. He attended the local schools and graduated from City College (CCNY) having majored in Biology and Chemistry. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the honorary society for academically proficient undergraduates. During his undergraduate days he participated in ROTC, the Reserve Officers Training Corps. After CCNY he attended Teacher's College, Columbia University, where he trained to teach secondary school science. There he met his wife to be, Fanny (Spector) Black, a graduate of Hunter College, who was also undergoing postgraduate teacher training. He also undertook postgraduate studies leading eventually to a PhD in Chemistry, also at Columbia University, NYC. At the start of the Second World War, he enlisted and served for a year in recruitment on Long Island, and thereafter was assigned to the US Army Chemical Corps.'He did his military service at Deseret, Utah doing classified research and development which he was not permitted to discuss for security reasons. His first child Victoria Louise was born 20 August 1943 while he was still in the army. By the time he left the army, around 1946/7, he had attained the rank of Captain and would have been promoted to Major had he remained in the military. By this time his second child, Cornelia Diane was born and he decided to have a go at civilian life. He was taken on by the General Electric Company to work in R&D at its Plastics Laboratory in Pittsfield, Massachusets. In January 1947 he, wife and two daughters, the younger just past her first birthday, left New York for temporary encampment in Stockbridge, Massachusets while a house in Pittsfield was found.
"A few weeks later, they moved into 43 Gale Avenue, Pittsfield. Daniel Gregory was born in October (26 October 1947). The family remained in Pittsfield for 8 years. In 1955 Rip was transferred within GE from Plastics to the General Engineering Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, about 50 miles away over the New York State border. The family moved in the spring to 1775 Randolph Road, Schenectady. During the next seven years Rip worked within GE on applications of infra red spectroscopy, a method of quantitative and qualitative analysis of unknown substances. He was involved in more classified work during this time, some of which involved travelling to factories to inspect industrial processes responsible for the production of things that had gone wrong to try and identify the where, what and how. One of these matters was subsequently declassified, so we got to hear what he had been up to. A rocket in one of the space programmes, it seems, had unexpectedly crashed into the sea instead of behaving itself. When the nose cone was recovered and analysed, it turned out that one of the components, a glass bulb with a filament in it was found to have a speck of unknown gunge on the filaments. It was hypothesised that this speck of unknown gunge was responsible for the malfunction of the rocket and Rip was assigned to discover the identity of the said gunge and to establish how it came to be present on the filament. The
infrared spectroscope identified the gunge as some species of rubber-based adhesive, a common enough constituent of everyday things such as sticking plasters. So Rip went off to the factory where the bulb had been manufactured to find out how the filaments had been contaminated by sticking plasters. And what he found was that the glass bulb covers that were fitted into the metal components at the base of the bulb that held the filaments were presented to the ladies on the assembly line without having been fire polished. Accordingly the glass at the bottom of the bulb was sharp and, to keep their fingers from being cut, the ladies on the assembly line covered them with sticking plasters, the adhesive from one of which had got onto the filaments of one bulb, which had ended up in the rocket nose cone, which had ended up in the sea instead of space. Rip accordingly put in a recommendation that the glass bulb domes be fire polished before being presented to the assembly line ladies and the problem was said never to have recurred. We didn't get to hear this story until many years later because it had been top secret."In 1962 Rip was transferred to the Thin Films installation at Sunnyvale, California. He went on ahead, found a house in San Jose at South 14th Street. In June he flew back to Schenectady and the family drove west, the furniture and household stuff having gone on ahead in vast moving vans. He worked in thin films on and off until around 1970, with a short stint spent working for Sperry Aviation interspersed. Then in around 1970 he was transferred within GE to Phoenix, Arizona to work on quality control of batch processing and waste water management within the companies. The transfer led to a separation from Fanny who couldn't tolerate the climate in Phoenix and so remained behind in San Jose.
"Eventually they divorced. Several years later Rip remarried Carol Noble Kalsen, the widow of his former boss who had been left with three relatively young girls to bring up on her own when her first husband, Karl, died in a car accident. This marriage lasted until the early 1980's, after Rip had developed cancer and Carol couldn't cope with the prospect of losing another husband.
"Towards the end of his career Rip was engaged in a lot of freelance consulting work, mainly concerned, as far as I can tell, with the sorts of quality control and plant management problems he had been involved with before his retirement from GE. He also undertook some R&D on his won in a small home made laboratory and obtained a number of US patents for original processes he'd developed. I have copies of these if they are of any interest.
"Rip died of disseminated secondaries of his primary tumour in a hospice in San Francisco on 25 January 1985 at the age of 71."
Vicky Rippere, 61 Queen Alexandra Mansions, Hastings Street, London, WC1H 9DR
An entry in "American Men & Women of Science, Physical & Biological Sciences 16th edition Volume IV, Q-S; Edited by Jaques Cattell Press, R.R.Bowker Company, New York, 1986" reads as follows...
'RIPPERE, Ralph Elliott, b New York, NY, July 10, 1912; m 1940, 1974; children 3. PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY. Educated Columbia University, MA, 1935, PhD(phys chem), 1943; Am Inst Chem, cert, 1969. Professional Experience: Snr chemist, Aerovox Wireless Co, NY, 1934-37; teacher appl chem, Bd Educ New York, 1938-41 & 1946; research chemist, Comput Lab, California 1962-68, staff scientist, Processor Equip Dept, ariz, 1968-70; consultant, Circuit Systems Division, Rogers Corporation 1976-78; CONSULT, 1978- Mem: An Chem Soc; fel Am Inst Chemists; NY Acad Sci; Sigma Xi; Am Powder Metal Inst. Res: Borate compounds of glycols; production of silicon tetrachloride; analytical use of infrared; photoresist etching of films; metal recovery from effluents; electrodeposition metal powders for powder metallurgy. Mailing Add: 135 Avila Road, San Mateo, Ca 94402.'
A history of his life is recalled from memory by his daughter Vicky (Victoria Louise Rippere):
"Ralph Elliot Rippere, known in adult life as Rip, was the only child of Ralph Pratt Rippere and Elsie Siebeneichen Rippere. He was born in New York City and lived there, in the Bronx (at, I believe, 819 Union Street) until he left home as an adult. He attended the local schools and graduated from City College (CCNY) having majored in Biology and Chemistry. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the honorary society for academically proficient undergraduates. During his undergraduate days he participated in ROTC, the Reserve Officers Training Corps. After CCNY he attended Teacher's College, Columbia University, where he trained to teach secondary school science. There he met his wife to be, Fanny (Spector) Black, a graduate of Hunter College, who was also undergoing postgraduate teacher training. He also undertook postgraduate studies leading eventually to a PhD in Chemistry, also at Columbia University, NYC. At the start of the Second World War, he enlisted and served for a year in recruitment on Long Island, and thereafter was assigned to the US Army Chemical Corps.'He did his military service at Deseret, Utah doing classified research and development which he was not permitted to discuss for security reasons. His first child Victoria Louise was born 20 August 1943 while he was still in the army. By the time he left the army, around 1946/7, he had attained the rank of Captain and would have been promoted to Major had he remained in the military. By this time his second child, Cornelia Diane was born and he decided to have a go at civilian life. He was taken on by the General Electric Company to work in R&D at its Plastics Laboratory in Pittsfield, Massachusets. In January 1947 he, wife and two daughters, the younger just past her first birthday, left New York for temporary encampment in Stockbridge, Massachusets while a house in Pittsfield was found.
"A few weeks later, they moved into 43 Gale Avenue, Pittsfield. Daniel Gregory was born in October (26 October 1947). The family remained in Pittsfield for 8 years. In 1955 Rip was transferred within GE from Plastics to the General Engineering Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, about 50 miles away over the New York State border. The family moved in the spring to 1775 Randolph Road, Schenectady. During the next seven years Rip worked within GE on applications of infra red spectroscopy, a method of quantitative and qualitative analysis of unknown substances. He was involved in more classified work during this time, some of which involved travelling to factories to inspect industrial processes responsible for the production of things that had gone wrong to try and identify the where, what and how. One of these matters was subsequently declassified, so we got to hear what he had been up to. A rocket in one of the space programmes, it seems, had unexpectedly crashed into the sea instead of behaving itself. When the nose cone was recovered and analysed, it turned out that one of the components, a glass bulb with a filament in it was found to have a speck of unknown gunge on the filaments. It was hypothesised that this speck of unknown gunge was responsible for the malfunction of the rocket and Rip was assigned to discover the identity of the said gunge and to establish how it came to be present on the filament. The
infrared spectroscope identified the gunge as some species of rubber-based adhesive, a common enough constituent of everyday things such as sticking plasters. So Rip went off to the factory where the bulb had been manufactured to find out how the filaments had been contaminated by sticking plasters. And what he found was that the glass bulb covers that were fitted into the metal components at the base of the bulb that held the filaments were presented to the ladies on the assembly line without having been fire polished. Accordingly the glass at the bottom of the bulb was sharp and, to keep their fingers from being cut, the ladies on the assembly line covered them with sticking plasters, the adhesive from one of which had got onto the filaments of one bulb, which had ended up in the rocket nose cone, which had ended up in the sea instead of space. Rip accordingly put in a recommendation that the glass bulb domes be fire polished before being presented to the assembly line ladies and the problem was said never to have recurred. We didn't get to hear this story until many years later because it had been top secret."In 1962 Rip was transferred to the Thin Films installation at Sunnyvale, California. He went on ahead, found a house in San Jose at South 14th Street. In June he flew back to Schenectady and the family drove west, the furniture and household stuff having gone on ahead in vast moving vans. He worked in thin films on and off until around 1970, with a short stint spent working for Sperry Aviation interspersed. Then in around 1970 he was transferred within GE to Phoenix, Arizona to work on quality control of batch processing and waste water management within the companies. The transfer led to a separation from Fanny who couldn't tolerate the climate in Phoenix and so remained behind in San Jose.
"Eventually they divorced. Several years later Rip remarried Carol Noble Kalsen, the widow of his former boss who had been left with three relatively young girls to bring up on her own when her first husband, Karl, died in a car accident. This marriage lasted until the early 1980's, after Rip had developed cancer and Carol couldn't cope with the prospect of losing another husband.
"Towards the end of his career Rip was engaged in a lot of freelance consulting work, mainly concerned, as far as I can tell, with the sorts of quality control and plant management problems he had been involved with before his retirement from GE. He also undertook some R&D on his won in a small home made laboratory and obtained a number of US patents for original processes he'd developed. I have copies of these if they are of any interest.
"Rip died of disseminated secondaries of his primary tumour in a hospice in San Francisco on 25 January 1985 at the age of 71."
Vicky Rippere, 61 Queen Alexandra Mansions, Hastings Street, London, WC1H 9DR