Warren Frank Witzig, age 86, one of the pioneers of nuclear power in the U.S. and retired professor of nuclear engineering and former department head at Penn State, died June 14, 2007, in State College, Pa. The Penn State Nuclear Engineering Society recently honored him as a "visionary and innovator in the establishment of the United States nuclear power industry."
Witzig conducted research in areas of reactor design and safety, fuel cycle, nuclear safeguards, rad-waste disposal, emergency planning and radiation monitoring. He became professor and department head of nuclear engineering at Penn State in 1967. Witzig was responsible for one of the earliest student programs in nuclear engineering in the United States. He established the undergraduate and associate degree programs and initiated the continuing education program on radiation, nuclear safety and environmental effects for public education. He supervised the Triga Mark II Reactor, Cobalt-60 Facility, and Low-level Radiation Monitoring Laboratory, all in the Breazeale Reactor Building.
Retiring from the university in 1986, he served on the GPUN Board of Directors, the Nuclear Oversite Committee for the Board of Directors of PSE&G (Salem I, II and Hope Creek), the Texas Utilities Nuclear Safety Commission for Comanche Peak Reactors I and II, the TVA Nuclear Safety Review Board (Watts Bar), the Seabrook Blue Ribbon Committee on Emergency Evacuation, and the National Nuclear Accreditation Board of INPO. Witzig chaired the Westinghouse GoCo Sites Nuclear Safety and Environmental Institute Board of Directors from 1988 to 1993.
In 1989 Gov. Richard Thornburgh called him into the service of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania during the emergency shutdown of Three Mile Island II. In June 1992, Witzig presented the paper, "The Value of a Nuclear Safety and Environmental Committee," at the Ukraine Academy of Science at Chelyabinski State University. He toured the site of the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant.
Witzig had been a lifelong advocate of nuclear energy as a clean, safe and efficient source of energy and also for the training, accreditation and oversite of nuclear operators. During World War II, he worked on the Manhattan District program on high vacuum systems, heat transfer, mass spectroscopy and ionic centrifuge. He served as the first experimenter in the Materials Testing Reaction and later as engineering manager of in-pile tests for the naval reaction program in Hanford, Chalk River, and the MTR-ETR complex. Witzig served as senior engineer and took the USS Nautilus, the world's first nuclear-powered ship's reactor critical in 1954 and also developed engineering used in the Skipjack and George Washington series of nuclear submarines, which have been the backbone of the U.S. nuclear navy.
Witzig was the co-author of the first FSAR for the Nautilus and numerous classified reports. In 1960 he co-founded NUS (Nuclear Utilities Services) Corp. in Washington D.C., where he served as senior vice president and member of the board of directors. The corporation grew from a two-man organization to the largest independent group of nuclear consultants in the nation.
He held overall responsibility for technical direction of work related to the application of nuclear energy for the production of electricity, small military reactors, test reactors, the use of nuclear reactors and isotopes in aerospace. He traveled worldwide in his consulting practice.
Among Witzig's honors are Fellow, American Nuclear Society; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science; Sigma Xi, Sigma Pi Sigma, and Eta Kappa Nu honor societies; Special Citation for an Engineering educator in Excellence in Engineering Education, EEI Power Engineering; Who's Who in Engineering and America; and Penn State's Outstanding Service Award for retirees.
Visitation will be from 6 to 8 p.m. Sunday, June 17, at Koch Funeral Home, 2401 S. Atherton St., State College, Pa. A celebration of life service will be held at the State College Presbyterian Church, 132 W. Beaver Ave., at 10 a.m. Monday, June 18, with the Rev. Joel Blunk officiating. A private family graveside service will be at Graysville Cemetery, Graysville, Huntingdon County. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Bernadette and Warren F. Witzig Nuclear Engineering Scholarship at the Pennsylvania State University, 1 Old Main, University Park, PA 16802.