Laurens Whittemore

Biography

Laurens E. Whittemore (IRE Associate, 1916; Member, 1925; and Fellow, 1927) was born in Topeka, Kansas on 20 August 1892. He graduated from Washburn College in Topeka in 1914, and received the M.A. degree from the University of Kansas, Lawrence, in 1915, where his major was physics.

After three years of graduate study and teaching at the University of Kansas, Whittemore was employed in the Radio Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards, Washington, D.C. from 1917 to 1923. In 1924, he became a member of the staff of the U.S. Department of Commerce and served as Secretary of the Interdepartment Radio Advisory Committee. He was Assistant Secretary or Secretary of the four annual National Radio Conferences called by the Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, from 1922 to 1925.

From 1925 to 1957, Whittemore was a member of the headquarters staff of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, New York, N.Y., where he was concerned with, among other things, relations with Federal regulatory agencies. He attended a number of International Radio and Communication Conferences either on behalf of the U.S. Government or the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, was was Secretary of the International Radio Conference, held in Washington, D.C. in 1927.

Whittemore was Vice President of the IRE, in 1928, and a member of the Board of Directors, from 1926 to 1929 and from 1935 to 1937. He held assignments on a number of IRE Committees, including the Standardization Committee of which he was Chair, from 1926 to 1929, and the Annual Review Committee of which he was Chair from 1940 to 1949. He also served on the IRE Board of Editors from 1929 to 1953. He was an IRE Fellow and a member of Sigma Xi.