SIGNAL Technical Advisor R. Norris Keeler Passes Away

AFCEA was saddened to learn of the passing of R. Norris Keeler, SIGNAL Magazine’s technical advisor. Keeler had a long and distinguished career serving the national security community that included service in the U.S. Navy as a captain and heading the physics department at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Born in Houston in 1930, he graduated from Rice University in 1952. After earning a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, he joined Lawrence Livermore in 1963, where he worked with Edward Teller. He headed the physics department there from 1972 to 1975, after which he was appointed the director of Navy Technology. He returned to Lawrence Livermore briefly and later joined Kaman Corporation as principal science advisor and director of technical marketing until his retirement in 2000.

Keeler held patents in several areas and invented the Magic Lantern optical undersea mine detection system, which was used successfully during Operation Desert Storm. He directed the Navy non-acoustic anti-submarine warfare (ASW) panel that produced a report that became the backbone of non-acoustic ASW. He served as a consultant to NASA and was named Rice University Engineer of the Year in 2011.

In addition to serving as SIGNAL’s technical advisor for more than three decades, Keeler was a member of AFCEA’s board of directors for several years. He also served on the magazine’s Sparky Baird Award committee, which named the best contributed article by an outside author. Keeler himself wrote several articles for SIGNAL Magazine over the years.

He is survived by his wife, Miriam, four children from a previous marriage and three grandchildren. Services with full military honors will take place at Arlington National Cemetery on April 1 at 3:00 p.m.