ISU grad honored with named navy ship

AMES -- Iowa State University alumnus Howard Otto Lorenzen, known as the "Father of Electronic Warfare" for his breakthrough work at the Naval Research Laboratory, has been memorialized with the launch of a new U.S. Navy ship.

Christened June 26 in Pascagoula, Miss., the USNS Howard O. Lorenzen is the second ship in U.S. Navy history to honor a Naval Research Laboratory scientist for contributions made to naval and civilian research. Operated by the Military Sealift Command, the missile range instrumentation ship will replace the USNS Observation Island launched in 1953.

The 12,575-ton, 534-foot USNS Howard O. Lorenzen will be home to a crew of 88, and will host embarked military and civilian technicians and mariners from other U.S. government agencies. Missile range instrumentation ships provide a platform for monitoring missile launches and collecting data that can be used to improve missile efficiency and accuracy.

Lorenzen, a 1935 Iowa State electrical engineering graduate, had a 33-year career at the Washington, D.C.-based Naval Research Laboratory. He developed radio countermeasures that could exploit detected or interrupted electromagnetic transmissions for military purposes, intelligence gathering and electronic countermeasures.

Lorenzen died in 2000. His daughter, Susan Lorenzen Black, was on hand for the ship's christening.