Friday, January 13, 2017

“Uncle John”—President Trump’s uncle/brilliant professor

 

image

 

John George Trump (August 21, 1907 – February 21, 1985) was an American electrical engineer, inventor, and physicist. He was a recipient of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's National Medal of Science, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.[3][4][5] John Trump was noted for developing rotational radiation therapy.[3] Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, he developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators. He was the uncle of Donald Trump, the 45th President of the United States.

 

Early life[edit]

Trump was the youngest of three children and the second son of German immigrants Elizabeth and Friedrich Trump.

Following his father Friedrich's untimely death, John was financed through college, from bachelor to doctorate, by his brother Fred.[citation needed] He had joined their mother in real estate development and management while still in his teens (Elizabeth Trump & Son). Initially, the brothers tried working together building houses, but they had differing expectation.[citation needed] The brothers dissolved their partnership, and John pursued a career in electrical engineering.

Trump received his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (1929), his master's degree in physics from Columbia University, and his doctorate in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (1933). He was a professor at MIT from 1936 until 1973.

War service[edit]

During the war years, Trump switched from work on hospital X-ray machines to research into similar technologies with a more direct application to warfare, especially the development of radar. In 1940, he joined the newly formed National Defense Research Committee (NDRC), as technical aide to Karl Compton, President of MIT and the Chairman of the Radar Division.[6]

This section's tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions. (December 2016) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

In 1942, Trump became Secretary of the Microwave Committee, a sub-committee of the NDRC. The head of the Microwave Committee was Alfred Lee Loomis, the millionaire physicist, who decided to create a laboratory. He selected a site for it, chose a suitably discreet and ambiguous title for it and funded the construction, until the Federal administration was set up. The new institution was the MIT Radiation Laboratory, or the "Rad Lab" to those in the know. The British were also working on radar, which they called Radio Direction Finder (RDF), and had started much earlier. Their Tizard Mission to the US showed how far ahead they were in some of the technologies, particularly the magnetron. The US decided to send a team to Britain to help coordinate the efforts of the two Allies. The unit was known as the "British Branch of the Radiation Laboratory" (BBRL) and operated as a department of Britain's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) at Malvern, in Worcestershire. From February 1944 to the end of the war in Europe, Trump was the Director of the BBRL.[7] During this time, Trump also served in the Advisory Specialist Group on Radar, advising USAAF General Carl Spaatz on navigational radar, precision-bombing radar, and also defenses against the German radars found in their night-fighters and in their flak units. The systems included: Gee, Oboe, LORAN, H2X, MEW & SCR-584. Trump worked with all the leading British radar experts, including Sir Robert Watson-Watt, A.P. Rowe and Bernard Lovell. At the end of the war, Trump also had interviews with Germany's leading radar technicians. Trump received recognition for his war-work from both the United States and the United Kingdom.[citation needed]

Family[edit]

John G. Trump married and he and his wife had three children: John Gordon Trump of Watertown, Massachusetts, Christine Philp of New London, New Hampshire, and Karen Ingraham of Los Alamos, New Mexico; and six grandchildren.[3] His nephew Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016.

Later life[edit]

In 1946 Trump, Robert J. Van de Graaff, and Denis M. Robinson founded the High Voltage Engineering Corporation (HVEC) to produce Van de Graaff generators.[3]

He returned to MIT to teach and lead research for three decades after the war. Trump died in Boston on February 21, 1985.[8]

The National Academy of Engineering described Trump as "a pioneer in the scientific, engineering and medical applications of high voltage machinery".[4]

Awards and Honors[edit]

Trump received a number of awards including:

References[edit]

  1. Jump up ^ "Sewage Problem Solved". Spokane Daily Chronicle. 21 May 1977. Retrieved 19 Aug 2015.
  2. Jump up ^ US 2123728 "High Energy Electron Treatment of Water" of Dr. John G. Trump, requested by High Voltage Engineering Corp
  3. ^ Jump up to: a b c d e f g h "JOHN TRUMP DIES - ENGINEER WAS 78". NYTimes.com. 1985-02-26. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b "John George Trump | Memorial Tributes: National Academy of Engineering, Volume 3 | The National Academies Press". Nap.edu. doi:10.17226/1384. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  5. Jump up ^ "The President's National Medal of Science: Recipient Details | NSF - National Science Foundation". Nsf.gov. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  6. Jump up ^ "J. G. Trump - Engineering and Technology History Wiki". Ethw.org. 2016-01-29. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  7. Jump up ^ "Private Papers of Dr J G Trump (Documents.4461)". Iwm.org.uk. 1999-02-22. Retrieved 2016-12-24.
  8. Jump up ^ "Eric Dubois: Academic Genealogy". Site.uottawa.ca. Retrieved 2016-12-24.

Above is from:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Trump

The Trump White House is going to be very, very Koch-y.

By Alex Kotch

The Trump White House is going to be very, very Koch-y.

During the 2016 presidential campaign, billionaire industrialists and Republican mega-donors Charles and David Koch made headlines by refusing to endorse a candidate. But ads in U.S. Senate races paid for by Koch-linked independent political groups hurt the image of Donald Trump's foe, Hillary Clinton, whom they criticized while associating Democratic Senate candidates with her. And the massive ground game of the Kochs' well-known political group, Americans for Prosperity, helped turn out thousands of Trump voters in battleground states.

From the time Trump picked his vice presidential running mate, Koch favorite Mike Pence, the brothers' influence on Trump World has grown ever stronger.

From transition team staffers to his cabinet, Trump has brought numerous Koch lieutenants and allies into his inner circle. His taunting of Marco Rubio for being a "puppet" of the Koch brothers is long gone. It's very likely that Trump is eager to work with Charles and David Koch, who represent exactly what Trump values most—wealth and power—which is also reflected in his potential Cabinet of billionaire executives. And though the Kochs may object to Trump's Islamophobia or other select viewpoints, they stand to add to their combined $88 billion through Trump's planned environmental deregulation, privatization, corporate tax cuts and other policies favoring the wealthy to be carried out by his U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pick, who recently sued that agency; his secretary of state choice, the CEO of Exxon; his labor pick, a fast-food CEO who doesn't believe in the minimum wage; and others.

David Koch attended Trump's election night victory party. Then on Dec. 21, Trump had an informal chat with Koch at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida (where Koch is a member) about "preparations for his administration."

The Kochs' allies have been helping shape the Trump administration for some time. The liberal Center for American Progress's political arm found that one-third of Trump's transition team, which recommends Cabinet nominees, ambassadors and advisers to the president-elect, has ties to the Koch brothers. These transition team members include Trump mega-donors who are also part of the Koch political network, such as Rebekah Mercer, and employees of Koch-funded think tanks like the Heritage Foundation and the Institute for Energy Research.

Here's a look at some of the top Koch allies who'll be running the government very soon and what kinds of Koch-backed policies we can expect them to champion.

The Koch Brothers' Darling

The Kochs must have popped champagne when Trump announced that Mike Pence, the conservative governor of Indiana, would be his running mate. Pence is adored by the Kochs and their vast political donor network; Ken Vogel and Maggie Haberman described him in Politico as "among the best … messengers for this new Koch brand in a field of prospective [presidential] candidates who fit some portions of the brothers' political bent but not others." Pence has addressed a gathering of Americans for Prosperity, the Kochs' most well-known political group that spends millions on elections each cycle opposing liberal policies and helping elect conservative Republicans. This year he planned to speak at one of the Kochs' donor seminars, where the brothers meet with uber-wealthy allies and pool their hundreds of millions of dollars for joint political spending, but canceled two weeks beforehand.

David Koch gave Pence's two gubernatorial campaigns $300,000. Americans for Prosperity ran ads supporting Pence, and the Republican Governors Association, to which Koch and Koch Industries have donated a combined $10.8 million since 2003, spent $4.2 million in 2012 and 2016 backing Pence.

Pence, who may be an even more powerful vice president than Dick Cheney, will be in prime position to advocate for the issues about which the Kochs care most, including corporate tax cuts, which he instituted in Indiana, and opposition to bailouts and market regulation. According to Trump's son, Donald Trump Jr., Pence will be in charge of both domestic and foreign policy. And he'll preside over the U.S. Senate, over which Republicans have a narrow majority.

"Indiana is one big free market, [and] much like Koch Industries, Mike Pence … picks the right fights," said Kellyanne Conway, a Republican pollster whose company has worked for Pence and for Americans for Prosperity. Conway became Trump's campaign manager last August and was recently named a "counselor to the president" who will help "effectively message and execute the Administration's legislative priorities and actions." Conway is also a board member of the Koch-aligned and Koch-funded Independent Women's Forum, which, The Nation reports, has pushed the Koch agenda.

Several of Pence's former staffers have gone on to work in the Koch political network, including Marc Short, who went from being Pence's chief of staff when Pence was a congressman to president of Freedom Partners, the Koch political operation's "central bank," which gives out enormous amounts of money to right-wing political spending groups. Short returned to advising Pence this summer when the governor joined Trump's campaign and will soon take a job in the West Wing, likely heading legislative affairs, according to the Washington Post.

Above is from:  http://www.ecowatch.com/koch-brothers-trump-team-2188567799.html