{"id":10841,"date":"2024-08-19T15:26:48","date_gmt":"2024-08-19T22:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/?p=10841"},"modified":"2024-08-19T15:40:40","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T22:40:40","slug":"a-tribute-to-a-northrop-grumman-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/a-tribute-to-a-northrop-grumman-legend\/","title":{"rendered":"A Tribute to a Northrop Grumman Legend: Frank Fendell"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Frank Fendell spent his final days doing the work he loved most: solving unsolvable problems.<\/p>\n

Known as a \u201cmathmagician\u201d and engineering research legend, Frank worked across multiple sectors at Northrop Grumman for a remarkable 59 years. He battled chronic lymphocytic leukemia since 2022.<\/p>\n

So passionate about his role supporting Northrop Grumman\u2019s mission to protect our warfighters and keep our country safe, he continued working until the day before he passed away on June 9.<\/p>\n

One of his closest colleagues Judy Kalfin, a configuration analyst for Defense Systems, spoke to Frank the night before he died. \u201cHe was still dabbling in a math problem. He loved his work so much, he didn\u2019t want to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n

His Research Supported Multiple Program Wins<\/b><\/strong>
An expert in aerothermodynamics, Frank\u2019s pioneering engineering research work started at the aerospace company TRW in 1965. He came to Northrop Grumman when our company merged with TRW in 2002.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s researched everything from Cold War technology to how to combat the Soviet threat.<\/p>\n

Frank\u2019s research supported major Northrop Grumman program wins, ranging from Global Hawk to Minuteman, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) design still in use today and Sentinel, an ICBM design to replace Minuteman in the future.<\/p>\n

Maria Guzman, proposal analyst, worked closely with Frank for many years. She said, \u201cHe was probably the biggest user ever of the Northrop Grumman Technical Library when we had one at Space Park. He authored hundreds of technical papers.\u201d<\/p>\n

He Preferred Paper and Pencil
<\/b><\/strong>Remarkably, he worked primarily in pencil and paper throughout his career, avoiding computers except as needed for only the most urgent emails. \u201cWith pencil, he could erase and rewrite easily,\u201d Maria explained.<\/p>\n

It was part of Maria\u2019s job to take his \u201cscribbled stuff\u201d from paper and input it into the computer to use to support programs and to create proposals.<\/p>\n

Solving the Most Extreme Weather Challenges<\/b><\/strong>
But his biggest passion, Maria said, revolved around solving weather challenges. He held patents for using unmanned aerial vehicles to track wildland fires, detect tornados and monitor hurricanes and tropical storms.<\/p>\n

His research contributed to the creation of a National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS), a joint program of the Air Force, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA to provide long-term measurements for weather forecasting.<\/p>\n

Another long-time colleague, Floyd Ross, engineering systems manager, pointed out that Frank held a PhD in applied mathematics from Harvard and could quickly learn new topics.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlmost everything in our industry can be modeled mathematically. His math expertise allowed Frank to work in any area that needed him,\u201d Floyd observed.<\/p>\n

A Gift for Mentoring
<\/b><\/strong>Among his many gifts, Frank served as a mentor to many colleagues, according to Maya Bershtel, Space sector librarian. \u201cIt was an honor to work alongside him and support him with research,\u201d Maya said.<\/p>\n

Frank inspired Maya, she said, by encouraging her to \u201cthink about the big picture of things. He was constantly connecting me to other people and went above and beyond to make sure we all kept reading, questioning and learning.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to several colleagues, Frank embodied the saying \u201cLove what you do and you\u2019ll never work a day in your life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In His Words<\/b><\/strong>
Prophetically, in a 2016 Inside Aerospace<\/i><\/em> article, Frank was quoted saying, \u201cApplied mathematicians never exhaust the supply of problems, just the lifespan to tackle them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Learn more about Frank Fendell<\/a>.<\/u><\/p>\n

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<\/b><\/strong><\/p>

JULIE <\/b><\/strong>KNIGHT  |  Senior Principal, Employee Communications, Site Communications<\/p>\n

Northrop Grumman Corporation  |  Aeronautics Systems<\/p>\n

951-622-9672  |  julie.knight2@ngc.com<\/a><\/u><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Frank Fendell spent his final days doing the work he loved most: solving unsolvable problems. Known as a \u201cmathmagician\u201d and [Read More]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":10847,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"TEC\\Tickets\\Commerce\\Module","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"table_tags":[],"class_list":["post-10841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-recent-ng-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10841"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10848,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10841\/revisions\/10848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10841"},{"taxonomy":"table_tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testsite.tra-spacepark.org\/cachetest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/table_tags?post=10841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}