Page 45 - Fall 2008

of wonder with which she viewed her father.
“I am beginning to feel like Daddy is akin to Forest Gump,”
she wrote in a 2006 letter. “CIA agent during cold war? He was there. Civil rights activist? He was there. What else is there for me to learn about my almost 87 year old father????? Was he floating around in space with Neil Armstrong? Drafting the New Deal, perhaps? Let me know, I’ll believe almost anything.”
Dr. Beyer is survived by four children: Catherine Beyer Hurst of Santa Fe, NM; Margaret Beyer of Rockville, MD; Rick Beyer of Lexington, MA; and Mary Beyer Trotter of Olympia, WA; and seven grandchildren: Brian & Timothy Hurst; Roberta & Andrew Beyer; and Julie, Rachel, & Faith Trotter.
His funeral was held on Saturday at 9 A.M. from the PERRY-McSTAY FUNERAL HOME 2555 Pawtucket Ave. East Providence with a mass of Christian burial at 10 A.M. in St. Sebastian Church, 67 Cole St. Providence. Burial will be in Gate
of Heaven Cemetery. Calling hours Friday 5-8. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to: St. Sebastian Church; International House, 8 Stimson Ave. Providence, RI 02906 or the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, RI Chapter, 205 Hallene Rd. Suite 209 Warwick, RI 02886.
Posted by Rick Beyer at 7:16 PM
Who, Me?
Rick Beyer
Lexington, MA
Author, documentary maker history enthusiast,
Dad, political junkie, and more.
Ed.: The above was written by Rick Beyer in his Blog, Astonish, Bewilder and Stupefy—History Candy, book updates, and other musings from Rick Beyer. The Editor is deeply grateful for his permission to allow Acoustics Today to print it in its entirety.
Robert Marsh Hoover
1922 • 2008
Robert M. Hoover of Houston, Texas
passed away on 13 July 2008, at the age of 86.
He was born in Portland, Maine on 19 January
1922. His attendance at the University of
Maine was interrupted for World War II mili-
tary service in the U.S. Army from 1943 to
1946. During that period, he was assigned to
the Manhattan Project in Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, whose highly classified work con-
tributed to the abrupt end of the war in August
1945. Following his return and graduation
from the University of Maine in Electrical
Engineering, he was employed in 1947 by the
Ordnance Research Laboratory at The
Pennsylvania State University and worked in
the field of underwater acoustics for the U. S.
Navy. His work involved transducer designs
for acoustic homing torpedoes, studies of underwater sound transmission and reception, and general consulting on noise and vibration problems within the laboratory. During this period he also earned a Master of Science degree at Penn State.
In 1956, Bob joined the pioneering acoustical consulting firm of Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where his early work was largely devoted to noise and vibration control of the then rapidly developing air-condi- tioning and electric-power-generating industries. Both of these fields often encountered severe noise and vibration problems with large capacity fan equipment that became one of Bob’s spe- cialties throughout his long and productive professional career.
In 1975, Bob became manager of a newly-opened office of BBN in Houston, Texas. Due to a BBN policy change, three years later, this office was closed. Largely for the stability of their families, Bob and his friend and associate, Reginald Keith, decided to remain in the Houston area and formed a new com- pany, Hoover & Keith Inc. (HKI), to continue their acoustical
consulting in that area, while adding noise and vibration of petroleum processing plants to their other fields of activity.
Bob had planned to retire from HKI in 1995, but he was drawn into a three-year con- sultation with Dr. Cyril Harris, working on noise and vibration control for the mechani- cal and air-handling systems for the new Benaroya Concert Hall in Seattle, Washington. This work had to be designed to accommodate the conditions imposed by the “free-floated” building complex that was sit- uated directly over an active railroad tunnel. Bob later wrote: “...watching the sunset over the (Seattle) harbor was symbolic of the sun setting on my career, but on the positive note of the completion of the Seattle Concert Hall
with outstanding acoustical performance unmarred by any audible sound of the air-conditioning system.”
Bob Hoover was a Fellow of the Acoustical Society of America, and a member of the Institute of Noise Control Engineering, the National Council of Acoustical Consultants, and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers. In 1995, he received the annual “Distinguished Engineering Award” of the College of Engineering of the University of Maine. He had a well-earned national and international reputation in noise control for a vari- ety of industries, and worked with the engineering staffs of a large number of prestigious architectural and engineering firms in this country and abroad.
Reggie Keith, Bob’s long time consulting partner, offers this deeply personal tribute:
“Bob Hoover’s friendships were forged in the commonali- ty that rational thought could somehow tame an apparent irra- tional universe. No matter what their beliefs, I never met anyone
44 Acoustics Today, October 2008