Inducted
04/19/2004
Degrees
B.S. Electrical Engineering, West Virginia University, 1950
Dean L. Curry was born in Fairmont, West Virginia, on December 16, 1922 to the former Leatha G. Poe and Mark L. Curry. He grew up with two brothers and two sisters. He came from a musical family and played the violin. While in high school, he received a Royal typewriter for being the best typist in two counties. He graduated from Fairmont High School at the age of fifteen. He attended West Virginia Business College in Fairmont and worked as a bookkeeper at Fairmont Aluminum Company until he enlisted in the Navy in June 1942. He served on the USS Tulagi and attained the rank of aviation electronics technician mate, first class. After World War II he wished to learn more about electronics and took preparatory classes at Fairmont State College.
He transferred to West Virginia University from which he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering in 1950. For many years, his mother kept the television he built at WVU.
He earned a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Newark College of Engineering (now New Jersey Institute of Technology) in 1953. His first job as an electrical engineer was at National Union Radio were he met his future wife, Jean G. Webb. He was employed at RCA as an electrical engineer for thirty years, specializing in quality control. He received two patents for work for RCA and published in Evaluation Engineering, The Electronics Magazine of Reliability Engineering.
He owned Curry Leisure Time sales, a recreational vehicle dealer, for twenty years. Towards the end of his life, he returned to bookkeeping, serving as treasurer for Calvary Episcopal Church in Summit, New Jersey, and finally as assistant treasurer at his last home, The Navesink House in Red Bank, New Jersey. He also enjoyed serving on the Endowment Committee. He is survived by his only child, Catherine A. Smith, her husband Gerald H. Smith, grandsons Kenneth G. Smith and Alan D. Smith, his brother Norman M. Curry, and sister Verna Curry Boyer.
The Dean Curry family has provided support in 2003 to name the eighth floor circuits and systems laboratory located in the Engineering Sciences Building, the Dean Curry Circuits and Systems Laboratory.