Thomas Boyd Lynch's Obituary
Thomas B. Lynch, Defense Scientist, Dies at 76.
Thomas B. Lynch, a leading defense scientist during the hottest years of the Cold War, died Thursday, May 8th, in Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md. He was 76 and had lived in Bowie, Md. for more than 40 years. He also had homes in Penn Yan, N. Y. and Delray Beach, Fl. He had suffered for more than a decade with Lewy Body Disease. An electrical engineer and physicist, Mr. Lynch spent his career designing complex sonar equipment as a consultant for the U. S. Navy. The sophisticated equipment he created was installed on American nuclear submarines to track activities of nuclear missile-laden Soviet subs. He supervised initial tests on undersea sonar performance in oceans all over the world. A native of Elmira, N. Y., Mr. Lynch graduated cum laude in 1959 from Syracuse University, where he was a member of the Syracuse chapter of Alpha Tau Omega fraternity. He did his graduate work in underwater sound propagation at the university’s Bioacoustics Laboratory. He was a member of Eta Kappa Nu, the electrical and computer engineering honor society His defense work career began with General Electric Co. He later moved to Tracor when that firm was an independent company and then to Maryland Applied Research, where he was a part-owner. He retired from ORC, another technical defense contracting firm, in 2003. An avid amateur filmmaker, Mr. Lynch was past president and board member of the Washington Society of Cinematographers and a member of the Music Box Society International, an organization devoted to the creation of mechanical music. He also belonged to the Loyal Order of the Moose and the Sports Car Club of America, for which he served as an official at many racing events at the Watkins Glen, N. Y. racing track in the 1960s. He is survived by his wife, Sondra, of Bowie; a son, Michael, of Hyattsville, Md.; a brother, Dan, of Delray Beach, Fl., a sister, Eileen Farrar, of Penn Yan, N. Y., and many nieces and nephews. Funeral arrangements under the direction of Lasting Tributes of Annapolis are private. A memorial service will be held in upstate New York at a future date. In lieu of flowers, contributions can be made in his name to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Dogs for the Blind, Wounded Warriors, Doctors Without Borders or the Hospice of Chesapeake.
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