Memorial Tribute to Harry Mandil

Annually members of the National Academy of Engineers decide on candidate members based on significance of their contributions to engineering and also elect engineers to recognized as memorial tributes. This is the tribute written by Ted Rockwell (NRHQ 1949 - 1964) for Harry Mandil (NRHQ 1949 - 1964).

Harry Mandil was involved from the very beginning in all aspects of the development, design, and application of nuclear reactor cores and associated equipment for the propulsion of naval ships, from the first nuclear submarine, Nautilus, to the aircraft carrier, Enterprise (more than 75 ships and about 100 nuclear reactors). He was also project manager for the development and design of the Shippingport Atomic Power Station, the first commercial nuclear plant in the world for the generation of electricity, a demonstration of President Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace Program.

In 1964, Harry Mandil left the Naval Reactors Program with two colleagues (Rockwell was one of them) to found MPR Associates Inc., a company that provided engineering services to industry and government, with an emphasis on the generation of electricity from nuclear and fossil fuels. He retired as principal officer of the company in 1985; he died of brain cancer in Naples, Florida, on April 27, 2006.