About the Inventor

Richard Neal Schowengerdt

Registered Professional Engineer In California By Examination
(Electrical E-6141)

Technological innovation in electromagnetics is not new to Richard. He has been a true "mustang" from a very early age. At age fourteen when the town of Liege, Missouri, still had a Post Office and the Burlington Train line and Depot he experimented extensively. He competed with his friend Merrill Korth to build the best crystal set and lost to Merrill's ingenuity whose set provided a stronger signal. But he did do well with his razor blade detector version when using a dipole mounted on a hundred foot high antenna mast erected by his Dad, John Herman Schowengerdt. He also took apart a lot of inoperative radios for the neighbors, diagnosed the problems, and finally learned to put them back together and make money at it. At age sixteen he obtained an amateur radio operator's license, W0MLS, the MLS of which he thought must have logically meant Missouri-Liege-Schowengerdt. His first spark gap transmitter was not too good for communications but performed well as a wide-band barrage jammer, effectively blanketing the entire town of Liege in white noise and evoked comments from the neighbors such as, "well, Richard must be at it again!" Upon the urging of his Dad, Richard took up a correspondence course in Radio and Electronics from DeForest's Training Inc., during his last two years of high school (1946-48), finally graduating from DeForest's in 1949 and traveling to the big city of Chicago for the final laboratory sessions. However, Richard was quite naive and inexperienced with the ways of the world in those times. While in Chicago he perceived that the girls were unusually friendly as they waved from the second story brownstone apartments near the laboratory but it was not until later in the Navy when he was informed that he had walked through the red light district! Upon a tip and recommendation from his brother, Ernest Wayne Schowengerdt, Richard moved on to a good starting position in electronics at Denning's Radio and Appliance in St. Charles, Missouri. A year later he moved into the big city of St. Louis with a promotion to Disco Distributing Company, a Motorola distributor, and also served for awhile in the Air National Guard.

In 1950 he decided to enter the U.S. Navy to avoid draft into the Army, securing an agreement to study at the U.S.Naval School Electronics at Treasure Island, San Francisco, where he graduated as an Electronics Technician in 1951. In 1952 while at the Naval Communication Station on Guam he was selected along with a buddy, Leo Madden III, to help set up a new Naval Communication Station in Totsuka, Japan. He was later assigned to the USS Prairie AD-15, alternating between San Diego and Sasebo, Japan, where he met his wife to be, Emiko Murai. After an honorable discharge from Naval service in 1954 he was offered a position as a Field Engineer with the RCA Service Company to help establish a new electronics maintenance depot in Pusan, Korea. Later on he resigned to attend school under the G.I. Bill at Sophia University in Tokyo where he lived with Emiko and their two young daughters, Margaret Midori and Maria Tomiko. He entered a pre-engineering program there but family illness and financial circumstances required that he secure a full-time position as an Electronics Inspector with the Northern Air Material Area Pacific at Tachikawa Air Force Base while continuing his studies part-time.

In 1957 Richard got homesick and brought his family back to the U.S. where he continued his studies at St. Louis University and worked at Greenleaf Manufacturing Company and McDonnell Aircraft Company (MAC), first as an Electronics Technician and later as a Technical Writer. While at MAC he managed to pass both the Engineer-In-Training (EIT) and Professional Engineer (PE) examinations in Jefferson City and MAC reclassified him as a Specification Engineer where he wrote the requirements for the F-4 Infrared System and most of the antennas. He also wrote the specifications for the communication system aboard the Project Mercury Space Capsule.

In January 1961 Richard and Emiko decided they had enough Winter weather in St. Louis, put their household belongings in storage, and drove to California in his new Ford Falcon with Margaret and Maria. Fortunately Richard secured a position as a Test Equipment Design Engineer with Autonetics in Downey within two weeks after their arrival. Subsequently Richard moved on to the Quality Evaluation Laboratory, U.S. Naval Station, Seal Beach, as an Electronics Engineer where he was engaged in designing and developing test systems, conducting special fleet weapon malfunction investigations, and pursuing surveillance and stockpile aging studies on various weapons such as Standard Missile, Sidewinder, Bullpup, and Walleye. In 1964 he was blessed with the birth of his son, Michael, and also promoted to Guided Missile Branch Head (GS-13) where he supervised twenty-five engineers and technicians in two operating divisions, RF & Microwave and Infrared & Optical. He was named as Technical Agent and Design Authority for the Walleye Test Station contract awarded to Cubic Corporation, San Diego, beginning in 1965.

In 1966 Richard ventured out into the world of consulting and established Logimetric Engineering in Costa Mesa with a partner, Donald Branstrom, successfully pursuing contracts involving test systems and hardware design studies with firms such as Nortronics, Atlantic Research, and Collins Radio. He was elected President of the Orange County Engineering Council in 1967-68 and after getting tired of the feast-famine swings of the consulting world he returned to government service in 1968 where he served at the Naval Missile Systems Engineering Station (NSMSES) in Port Hueneme as a Reliability Engineer. He later returned to the Naval Weapons Station Seal Beach to help establish OSCAR, a new overhaul and repair facility. In late 1968 he was re-promoted to a GS-13 position as Electrical Branch Head at the Navy Metrology Engineering Center (MEC) in Pomona and ventured into the high precision low frequency domain where he directed research, design, and development of new Navy standards from DC to 100 KHz. While at MEC he pioneered in nanovolt digital measurements and the development of new precision metrology systems in concert with the National Bureau of Standards (NBS – Now NIST) utilizing low field magnetics, nuclear magnetic resonance, and the Josephson's effect. He was a speaker at various symposia in the U.S. and Canada and published author of "DVMs Generate Kickback Pulses," Electronic Instrument Digest, June1970, and "Measuring Nanovolts with Low-Cost DVMs," Instruments & Control Systems, March 1972.

In 1972 he left MEC and was selected as the Test & Evaluation Engineer (GM-13) for the Naval Sea Systems Command Technical Representative (AEGIS) Office in Pomona where he was involved in design, development, and test activities for the Standard Missile Two (SM-2) Program, the AEGIS primary weapon. Upon the urging of his supervisor, Mr. William VanDusen (NAVSEA TECHREP AEGIS), he ventured into innovation again in 1973, collaborating with Dr. John Clymer at the Fleet Analysis Center in Corona to develop a new concept for closed-loop field testing of guided missiles, delivering a paper on this subject at the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1974. Closed-loop testing provided a viable method for simulating the missile threat environment in the laboratory and exercising performance over its full dynamic range, thereby greatly reducing the need for extensive live missile firings to measure the performance envelope. Dr. Werner Koch at General Dynamics Pomona assisted in the final codification of the closed-loop test concept and co-authored the publication "Closed Loop Testing" in the April 1981 edition of National Defense. Despite extensive opposition from the field test community, Richard and Dr. Clymer succeeded in convincing the Navy Quality Assurance Office in Washington to fund the development of a $2 million closed-loop test facility at the Quality Evaluation Center, Naval Weapon Station, Seal Beach. This facility was later moved to NSMSES, Port Hueneme. While serving with the Naval Reserve in Point Mugu and at the Miramar Naval Air Station from 1972 through 1982 he achieved the rank of Chief Warrant Officer Two and participated in various electronic countermeasures (ECM) threat studies and continued to promote the concept of closed-loop testing of guided missiles.

Continuing his academic studies, Richard finally graduated from California State University in 1976, leaving government service again in 1983 with lucrative offers from private industry and serving in various advanced design positions at Northrop, Rockwell, and McDonnell Douglas. He was engaged for several years in threat assessment, missile profile analysis, and preliminary design of the avionics suites for the Advanced Tactical Fighter (ATF) both at Northrop and Rockwell. He also pioneered in preliminary design of an "all-electric" version of the ATF which utilized gearless electrical generators and electro-mechanical actuators in lieu of the traditional generators and hydraulic control devices. At McDonnell Douglas (MD), Long Beach, he was assigned to the Derivative Missions Program Office, wrote the system specifications for the communication system for the MD version of the Presidential Plane, and participated in preliminary design of the infrared system for the the C-17. He later returned to the Northop B-2 Division in 1987 where he participated in armament and mission avionics systems design.

In 1988 the aerospace bubble burst and Richard returned to the stable world of government service again with the Defense Contract Management Agency (DCMA) where he performed functions in configuration management, reliability/maintainability, safety of flight, and low observables (LO) involving all versions of the F-18 Aircraft. In October 2000 he volunteered for the B-2 Program in Palmdale where he re-established weekly video conference dialogue with the B-2 Systems Program Office in Dayton and served as the B-2 Program Integrator from August 2002 through February 2003. He also served as a Systems Engineer engaged in a variety of surveillance activities involving various B-2 Program enhancements, LO performance, and Programmed Depot Maintenance (PDM) activities. In March 2004 he was reassigned to El Segundo where he is primarily responsible for engineering surveillance of the Northrop Grumman workshare on the new EA-18G Growler variant designed to replace the EA-6 Prowler. He is also responsible for technical evaluation of cost proposals and surveillance of F-5/T-38 engineering efforts. While with the DCMA Richard has received a total of $8,788 in awards, one of which was an Outstanding Performance Award in 2001 for his service on the B-2 Program.

As a private endeavor he ventured into innovation in electro-optical camouflage in 1987 and in 1993 launched Project Chameleo, together with his associate, Dr. Felix Schweizer, formerly the laser/optical expert with the MEC in Pomona. He co-authored the article Project Chameleo - Cloaking Using Electro-Optical Camouflage- Presentation , with Dr. Schweizer and delivered the paper during the High Leverage Technologies Session of FIESTACROW 93, sponsored by the Association of Old Crows and the Air Force Joint Electronic Warfare Center in San Antonio. He finally secured Patent No. 5,307,162 entitled Cloaking Using Optoelectronically Controlled Camouflage on April 26, 1994. Later on he teamed up with an associate in Hemet, Dr. Lev Berger, and performed some tests and simulations involving Project Chameleo technology and culminating in the presentation of a paper at the American Physical Society Centennial in Atlanta on March 23, 1999. You can download this Microsoft PowerPoint file, Physical Aspects of Electro-Optical Camouflage , as well as read all about this historic meeting at APS Centennial . In February 2005 he presented a paper entitled "Innovations in Electro-Optical Camouflage - PROJECT CHAMELEO" at a Military Sensing Symposium at SPAWAR, Charleston, S.C., and in March 2005 he presented a similar paper to officials of the U.S. Navy in the Los Angeles area. Throughout his career Richard has manifested an extraordinary conceptual vision beyond his times coupled with daring and determination to persevere despite strong opposition. He is convinced that physical invisibility concepts have various practical applications in military, law enforcement, industrial security, industrial and workforce environmental enhancement, and facility emissions control.

In addition to his technical achievements Richard is active in family, Church, fraternal, and professional activities. He is Secretary of the Harbor Christian Fellowship Church in Costa Mesa, California; Chaplain of Newport Mesa Lodge No. 604 (Free & Accepted Masons of California); 33^rd degree Mason, part-time actor, and Degree Master of the 17^th and 24^th Degrees in the Long Beach Scottish Rite (Scottish Rite Of Freemasonry, Southern Jurisdiction); member of the El Bekal Shrine in Anaheim (Ancient Arabic Order Nobles Of The Mystic Shrine); life member of the National Sojourners, Chapter No. 250 in Santa Ana; Past Patron of Harbor Star, Order of the Eastern Star; and member of the Elks Club in Santa Ana. His hobbies consist primarily of reading , writing, acting, an investigations of alternative historical theories.

This page was updated on 10 April 2008