Mark Townsend

Mark A. Townsend, 95, an electrical engineer with 23 patents who participated in the development of the fluorescent light, the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable, airplane instrument panel lighting, and the electronic telephone switching system that changed the way telephones connected across the world, died Friday, January 29, 2010 in Aurora, Colorado. He earned a bachelor's degree from Texas Tech University and a master's degree in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At MIT, Mr. Townsend worked with Dr. Harold Edgerton of stop-action-photography fame. During his career, Mr. Townsend led teams that developed products using technologies that evolved from vacuum tubes to discrete transistors to modern integrated circuits. In the early 1940's, while at General Electric Vapor Lamp Company in Cleveland, he patented the fluorescent starter switch with a reset button. His team at GE developed the 12"" fluorescent light and an ultraviolet light that provided night illumination to fighter aircraft. During World War II, Mr. Townsend taught radar at Texas Tech and MIT and edited the first declassified book on radar. After WW II, he joined AT&T Bell Laboratories. While there, he worked on the first electronic switching systems, which provided instantaneous national and international telephone call switching. This electronic system replaced thousands of local and national exchange telephone operators. His patent processes became the basis for the Bell Laboratory's internal book on patents and processes. About 1954, his group developed a device to protect the amplifiers in the first trans-Atlantic telephone cable. The device worked as designed when a Russian trawler caused a break in the cable during the Cold War. In 1966, Mr. Townsend became Laboratory Director responsible for the Electronic PBX and ESS (Electronic Switching System). Before his retirement in 1979, he participated in the decision to take the telephone systems from analog to digital. His group developed the Automatic Intercept System that tells a caller the number they have reached has been changed. In his final assignment as Director of Data Communications Technology and Applications Laboratory, his team developed data modems transmitting 2400 bits per second. Mr. Townsend worked with his first wife, Jean McClelland Townsend, to found the Arts Alliance of Monmouth New Jersey in 1978. In 1986, he also participated in the Monmouth County Arts Council obtaining the seats from Carnegie Hall in NYC for the Red Bank, NJ Count Basie Theatre. Mr. Townsend is survived by his wife of 19 years, Del Samac Townsend of Aurora, CO, and was preceded in death by his first wife, Jean McClelland Townsend. Mr. Townsend is also survived by his daughters Patricia Townsend Spence, of Juneau, Alaska; Marcia Townsend DeWitt, of Sedgwick, Maine; and Evelyn Townsend Glaspey, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin; and a son, Mark A. Townsend, Jr., of Framingham, Massachusetts. Mr. Townsend's survivors include 13 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. Private family services have been held. Please leave your memories of Mark and condolences with his family by selecting the ""Sign Guestbook"" tab below.