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Charlie Willis
This appeared in today's Washington Post obituary section. It is important to
remember that we all have a personal side to our lives.
Charles A. Willis
Physicist
Charles A. Willis, 67, a senior health physicist whose work at the Nuclear
Regulatory Commission included helping develop standards for controlling
radiation and radioactive materials, died of a heart attack Jan. 28 at the
commission's Rockville headquarters.
Mr. Willis also taught graduate courses in radiation science at Georgetown
University. A resident of Potomac, he moved to the Washington area in the early
1970s to work as a nuclear safety engineer with the Potomac Electric Power Co.
He joined the Atomic Energy Commission in 1972.
His work included assignments as a reactor safety expert overseas with the
International Atomic Energy Commission and as adviser to South Korea and the
Philippines.
He helped develop and implement new requirements at nuclear plants after the
Three Mile Island accident and wrote the first NRC computer codes for
calculating radiation risks. He was president of the regional chapter of the
Health Physics Society and wrote more than 200 technical papers and other
publications.
Mr. Willis was born in Missouri and raised in Vidalia, La. He served in the Air
Force. He was a graduate of Northwestern Louisiana University, where he also
received a master's degree in physics. He studied radiation physics at the
University of Washington and at the Oak Ridge School of Reactor Technology.
Mr. Willis was a safety engineer with Lockheed Aircraft, General Electric,
Atomics International and McDonnell Douglas Corp. earlier in his career.
Survivors include his wife of 40 years, Wynnora Willis of Potomac; three
children, Charles King Willis of Potomac, Damon Willis of Rockville and Loretta
Willis of Oakland; and a granddaughter.
-- John
John Jacobus, Area Health Physicist
National Institutes of Health
Radiation Safety Branch, Building 21, Room 238
21 Wilson Drive, MSC 6780
Bethesda, MD 20892-6780
Phone: 301-496-5774
Fax: 301-496-3544
E-mail: jjacobus@exchange.nih.gov (W)
jenday@ix.netcom.com (H)
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