Rathbun Squires

Distinguished Alumnus Rathbun B. Squires, Class of 1936

Born in Richmond in 1908 to Walter, Sr., and Elizabeth B. Squires, Rathbun B. Squires, graduated  from Morton in 1936 and from Purdue University in 1940 with a degree in electrical engineering.  He took a position as electrical engineer for Westinghouse Electrical Corporation, working for them from 1940 to 1960.

He developed several patents. One of Rathbun’s most notable patents was for the networking of calculators in an electrical system with one calculator being able to control the conditions for the entire system.  This made the system self-regulating.

Oldest brother, Walter Squires Jr., became an engineering associate for Essco Research of Linden, New Jersey.  Rathbun, along with another brother, Lombard Squires, both worked for the Manhattan Project, the highly secret program that developed the atomic bomb during World War II.  The Manhattan Project was a collaboration between the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, which resulted in the dropping of the first atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, on August 6 and August 9, 1945.

The brothers were two of 130,000 men and women who worked at thirty sites across the United States from 1942 to 1946. Neither brother knew of the other’s involvement until after the war. Rathbun Squires worked on  the electrical wiring for the atomic bomb for the United States government and Du Pont Company in Richland, Washington, one of three places the first nuclear war head was made.  Lombard Squires  was a chemical engineer for Du Pont.

Rathbun B. Squires died at age seventy-two in New Jersey on November 30, 1991.

Dr. Squires was selected as a Distinguished Alumnus  in 1992.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  380 Hub Etchison Parkway, Richmond, IN 47374

 (765) 973-3338