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Roger L. Barron Stanardsville, VA QCWA # 31342 Chapter 155 |
Roger L. Barron
November 22, 1934 - December 28, 2021
Roger L. Barron of Greene County, Virginia, former president and founder of Adaptronics, Inc. and Barron Associates, Inc., passed away peacefully on Tuesday, December 28, 2021, at home with his immediate family.Roger was born in Washington, D.C., November 22, 1934, the son of Bryton Barron and Ella Lillibridge Barron, writers and educators, who were both from South Dakota. Bryton was a former Rhodes Scholar and careerist in the U.S. Department of State, where he was a specialist in treaties, international executive agreements, and historical policy research. Bryton built the family home in Springfield, Va., with his own hands during the Depression era.Roger was initially home-schooled. He attended Fairfax HS and graduated First-Man from Fairfax in 1951. There he ran track and edited the school newspaper, which won a state award. He set several national records in his model aviation hobby, and so that he could control model planes remotely, he studied electronics and became a licensed radio amateur; that began a lasting interest in amateur radio communications. During their senior year at Fairfax HS, a team of two lifelong friends, Philip Monson and Roger, won the Virginia state championship in debate. After graduation, Roger received a scholarship for study at Princeton University, which he entered as one of the youngest in his class. He majored in Aeronautical Engineering and edited the university engineering magazine.
Barron graduated with honors from Princeton in 1955, then went to Cambridge University in England for graduate study supported by a U.S. National Science Foundation fellowship. In 1956 he married Virginia Gayle Young, then a student at Randolph-Macon Women's College. Together they spent a year near Boston while Barron studied at M.I.T. with a graduate fellowship from the Sperry Corporation. During 1957-59, Roger and Gayle lived near Princeton, N.J., while Barron worked at Dodco, Inc., an aeronautical consulting firm, where he became Vice President. Barron next joined Melpar, Inc, of Falls Church, Va., where he was employed for two years as an electrical engineer.In 1961 Roger founded Adaptronics, Inc., in Fairfax County, Va., where Barron served more than 20 years as President, Chairman, and Senior Research Scientist, engaged in government-sponsored and industrial R&D in flight and metallurgical process control; signal processing within electro-magnetic, acoustic, and seismic domains; and artificial neural networks, particularly polynomial learning networks, for predictive modeling of complex processes and data interpretation. In the 1980's Barron was co-inventor at Adaptronics of a patented new method and instruments for ultrasonic and eddy-current non-destructive testing of materials and structures such as aircraft wings and nuclear power reactors. This development attracted NYSE buyers, and in 1981 Adaptronics was acquired by Flow General, Inc. of Santa Barbara, Calif., and McLean, Va.Roger founded Barron Associates, Inc., in 1983, which they moved to the Charlottesville, Virginia, area in 1986. A highlight of the flight control R&D at Barron Associates was successful demonstration by the Air Force of means for adaptive control that re-designed itself during flight to compensate for unforeseen aircraft malfunctions or damage. The company became closely involved in the development of a widely-used GPS-aided, inertially-guided ordnance system known as the Air Force / Navy Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), which continues to be manufactured in massive quantities by the Boeing Corporation. Barron Associates was sold in 1999 to leaders among its employees and continues to operate in Charlottesville.
Several business organizations trace their lineage to Adaptronics and Barron Associates. Paul Hess, of WWP Advisors, LLC, in Charlottesville, recently wrote to us of Roger: "He was an early mentor to me, and I always found him to be a kind and generous soul with a playful imagination." Dean Abbot, of Abbott Analytics, in San Diego, Calif., writes in the preface of his book "Applied Predictive Analytics" (Wiley, 2014): "I would never have been in this field were it not for Roger Barron, my first boss at Barron Associates, Inc., a pioneer in statistical learning methods and a man who taught me to be curious, thorough,and persistent about data analysis. His ability to envision solutions without knowing exactly how they would be solved is something I reflect on often."The Barrons retired in 1999 and enjoyed life on their farm in Greene County, Va., and as members of First Presbyterian Church in Charlottesville. For 16 years Roger maintained an interest in distance running. He participated as a member of the Charlottesville Track Club, winning over two dozen medals in Virginia and Florida senior games, and twice representing Virginia in the National Senior Olympics. Roger also continued his technical interests, publishing research papers in the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Journal of Guidance, Control, andDynamics. For a decade he teamed with his sons in research and writing on the subject of optimum trajectory control for fixed-wing drones. Roger was a Life Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers and of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He was also a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics, the American Radio Relay League, the Albemarle Amateur Radio Club, and the Potomac Valley Radio Club.
Roger Barron is survived by his beloved wife, Gayle; his sister, Bebe Seward of McLean; daughter Rowena Barron Crittenden, of Stanardsville, Va., research laboratory manager, Carter Immunology Center, at the University of Virginia; Dr. Andrew Roger Barron of New Haven, Conn., Professor of Statistics and Data Science at Yale University; Andrew's wife, Lidija Jakobek Barron, Professor of Food Technology at the University of Osijek, Croatia; daughter Jenifer Barron Glick, instructor and practitioner in massage therapy in Schenectady, N.Y.; Jenifer's husband Jeffrey Glick, retired Chief Regulating Foreman for National Grid, Inc., in Schenectady, N.Y.; David William Barron, President of D. W. Barron, Consulting, LLC, specializing in computer applications; and David's partner Nick Wyatt, property manager in Daytona Beach, Fla. Roger Barron is also survived by 13 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Services will be private. A Celebration of Life will be held in Roger's honor at a later date.
Condolences and messages forthe family can be left at http://www.hillandwood.com
We request, in lieu of flowers, that charitable contributions be given to the Friends of Presbyterian Education Board, online at http://www.friendsofpeb.org/barron for education of girls in a Pakistan village, a cause Roger keenly supported.
Published by Daily Progress on Jan. 2, 2022.