Richard F. Erdley received his B.S. degree in Engineering Science from Penn State in 1957. From 1957 to 1958, he was an engineer with Bendix Aviation Corporation in York, PA; responsible for design and development of the pulse coding and microwave sections of automatic pre-launch test equipment for the TALOS Missile. From 1959 to 1969, he was a staff engineer/program manager with HRB-Singer in State College responsible for the conception, design, development, fielding, and operation of numerous systems that included automatic real-time monitoring and reporting of aircraft and pilot parameters, sophisticated automatic light weight airborne reconnaissance receiving systems, and a world-wide reconnaissance and reporting program.

From 1969 to 1988, Mr. Erdley was a staff engineer/technical director for Locus, Inc., in Boalsburg, PA, where he introduced digital processing and initiated a systems organization which developed radar threat simulators, high density RF environment simulators, and high speed processing systems for Acousto-Optic and CCD receivers. He was also responsible for all corporate research and development for Locus locations in Boalsburg, Washington DC, and San Antonio. From 1988 until his retirement in 1996, Mr. Erdley was an associate research engineer/assistant director for planning at the Applied Research Laboratory of Penn State. At ARL, he served as the program manager of the FDT and the CCAPS activity sponsored by the U.S. Navy and was responsible for the operation of the business and administrative sections along with the machine shops, drafting, publications, and physical plant.

Mr. Erdley and his wife, Nancy, are retired and living in State College. Their son Todd and his wife Julia both received B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Penn State. Todd is the CEO of Videon Central and Julia is a Research Engineer at the Applied Research Laboratory. Grandson Alan has just completed his freshman year in Industrial Engineering and is a member of the Penn State swimming team.

NOTE: Two of our Centennial Fellows are spotlighted each week.