Description:

Mr. Irons worked on radar for the US Navy at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, as a civilian electrical engineer after graduating from Rutgers. As World War II progressed, Mr. Irons and his colleagues were inducted into the US Navy, but continued to serve in the same capacity. After the war, Mr. Irons spent much of his career as an engineer with the Naval Surface Weapons Center. His achievements there include co-inventing a magnetometer used to map the Earth's electromagnetic fields (now part of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's collection) and designing circuits for the IMP and Explorer VI and XII satellites.