Charles Popenoe Obituary

Popenoe
Charles Popenoe "Chuck" (Age 91)
Chuck Popenoe died on January 1, 2024 of natural causes at the age of 91. He was known as "Chuck" but became affectionately known later in life as "Pops" by his many friends. He passed peacefully with his beloved wife of 64 years, Helen Popenoe, by his side in their house in Bethesda, MD.

Chuck was born on August 18, 1932, in Washington, DC to Charles and Edith Popenoe. He showed an inventive bent his whole life with his last 40+ years doing so in his basement workshop. Some examples are his FAA approved experimental airplane he and his wife used to fly in, building a two tank SCUBA gear for his wife to wear for their diving fun, sawing a VW bug in half to build a bush buggy to use on the family's mountain property, buying a sunken classic Skipjack boat (for $1.00) and restoring it enough to sell, filling their home with beautiful wooden built-ins and a good number of inventions that were done too soon for public awareness of the need (such as the card to open hotel doors instead of a key.)

While an undergraduate, Chuck, as an intern at the National Bureau of Standards (NBS), designed and built the first NBS solar furnace which produced clean temperatures of 6300 F for refractory research. He graduated (highest honors) in 1957 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering.

According to the Smithsonian's Lemelson Center (American History Museum) where much of his inventive work is curated, "Immediately after graduation, Popenoe joined the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in the Preliminary Design Group, working on missile and rocket design for the US Navy. I 1962, he left APL and began a 27-year career at the National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) as an experimental plasma physicist. In this capacity, he invented and developed a universal laboratory data acquisition and control system, called MIDAS, which is now used throughout NIST and in many world laboratories. The invention of MIDAS resulted in a Silver Medal Award from Commerce. Following MIDAS, he conceived and constructed a world class calibration facility for automatically calibrating optical radiation standards sources. The facility is known by the acronym FASCAL and is still in constant use at NIST.

Mr. Popenoe has received a number of honors and awards including: Lifetime Achievement Award from the Western/Ellington Alumni Assn. In 2000; recipient of 2 Gold Medal Awards at the 1971 Inventors Expo., Brussels; U.S. Department of Commerce Silver Medal Award for Laboratory Automation, NIST, 1975; First Place, USPTO Inventors Expo., Washington, D.C. 1994, Award for Exceptional Creativity, Intellectual Property Owners, 1994. He has been granted some 35 US and international patents in his name." Additionally, in 2018, the School of Engineering, University of MD chose Popenoe as the one to receive their award and induction into its Innovation Hall of Fame for "Inventing Tension Indicating SmartBolts." The company he founded to commercialize his SmartBolt invention is currently under the leadership of his son as Industrial Indicators in Frederick, MD.

He pursued many avocations which played a central role in his life. He was a lifelong sailor, captaining many extended sailing journeys to the Caribbean and other ports. He received his pilot's license while in college, and was an aviator all his life. He was a pioneer in the Ultralight airplane sport around 1980 and spent his remaining years as a pilot of light and sport aircraft. He was an accomplished beer brewer and was among the founders of BURP in 1981, a local homebrewing club. He and his wife hosted homebrewing campouts at their rural mountain property which are still carried on by his family. He was a motorcyclist his whole life. But mostly he was a music lover and accomplished musician, notable for his fiddle playing of Irish and Applachian folk tunes with other enthusiasts. He will be greatly missed by the many communities of friends he accumulated through these many hobbies and pursuits. He inspired many of these friends, and his son and grandchildren to pursue all of these hobbies as well, being a wonderful role model and guide.

Chuck is survived by his wife Helen and their only child, Charles H. Popenoe III, daughter-in-law Smriti Popenoe, and two grandchildren, Rohan and Natasha. The family requests donations and gifts be made to Sugarloaf Congregation of Unitarian Universalists, 16913 Germantown Rd, Germantown, MD 20874. A wake will be held in his honor at Sugarloaf Congregation on August 18, 2024.