Don Thompson

Don Thompson graduated from Clear Lake High School as valedictorian of his class of 1945. In addition to academic success, he was a member of a trumpet quartet that won state and national contests and was captain of the football team. He excelled in science and math and feels the foundation he received at Clear Lake High School prepared him well for the impressive career he has enjoyed.

Upon graduation from high school, Don was drafted into the U.S. Navy and took tests which allowed him to enter the Navy B-12 program at Idaho University, where he met his wife, Barbara. After his service years, he went on to earn degrees, including at Ph.D. at the University of Iowa, all with highest honors. He continued his academic career at Cambridge Research Center and MIT Laboratory before beginning work at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. He worked there from 1954 to 1964 doing special research connected with atomic materials and the results of radiation on materials being used.

In 1964, the family, which had grown to five with the addition of sons Jim, Steve and John, moved to Thousand Oaks, California, where Don became Director of the Structural Materials Department for the Rockwell International Company, dealing with materials for aircraft and doing research for materials used in the Apollo “Man on the Moon” project. He became much respected, world-wide, for his work in this area over the next fifteen years.

In 1979, an opportunity to work at Iowa State University and the Ames laboratory made it possible for Don and Barbara to return to Iowa and Don’s roots. He feels this twenty-year period, from 1979 to 1999, when he partially retired, (He still spends one day a week in Ames and lots of computer time as Distinguished Professor Emeritus for the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Mechanics at Iowa State.) was the most productive of his career. He has continued his materials research while teaching, lecturing all over the world, and writing. His books and contributions to books, journals, and reports in numbers alone are simply amazing . . . about 85! He has authored six books and been guest editor for 21 books published as Materials Evaluation Research Supplements. He has also been issued eight different patents.

Don’s list of honors is impressive: one of which he is very proud is the “Lifetime Achievement Award” of the International Society of Optical Engineers, but that is just one of a very long list of those he has earned over the years. He is known and much respected for his work and research by companies and universities across the world. Clear Lakers are happy that Don and Barb have returned to live at the same lakeshore location enjoyed by his parents many years ago. Their three sons, who have continued in the father’s footsteps and been very successful, nine grandchildren and their families all enjoy visiting their parents on the shores of Clear Lake.