William E. Nickel
Memorial visitation for William Edward Nickel of Palatine since 1966 will be held Saturday, January 28, 2012 from 10:00 a.m. until the time of the memorial service at 11:00 a.m. at Christ Lutheran Church, 41 S. Rohlwing Road, Palatine, IL 60074, with the Reverend Craig P. Wagner officiating.
Born August 6, 1931 in Chicago, he passed away peacefully, Tuesday, January 24, 2012 at home in Palatine.
Bill attended Bethel College in Minnesota for 1 year and completed college at the University of Illinois where he was a member of the Triangle Fraternity. Bill joined the ROTC during college; which provide him with an exemption from the Korean War. After Graduation in February 1954, he worked for Douglas Aircraft Company in Anaheim, California.
The Air Force activated him in May of 1954; he was stationed at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio as a 2nd Lieutenant and was promoted to 1st lieutenant. He was honorably discharged in May 1956 and was awarded the National Defense Service Medal. While in the Air Force, Bill’s focus was on field data analysis of atomic testing being performed in Nevada.
In May 1956, Bill joined Cook Electric in Skokie, where he worked until November 1966, when the R& D department was laid off due to the Vietnam War. He worked on a number of classified projects, including a project to perform design engineering, modification and instrumentation of military aircraft to provide an integrated airborne stereographic camera instrumentation system for recording ballistic missile re-entry phenomena; the largest project was the design and testing of the re-entry parachutes for rockets at altitudes of 70 miles and speeds up to Mach 3.
In November 1966, just 3 days after losing his job at Cook Electric, Bill joined Recon Optical (formerly known as CAI (Chicago Aerial Inc.), a division of Bourns, Inc.), in Barrington. Bill worked there until 1985. Some of the classified projects Bill was involved with included, 1) the development of a new searchlight, used for surveillance under combat conditions; 2) air photography that did not require any energy from the aircraft and could provide excellent photos (able to see images of people) from as far as 3,000 feet, while flying at mach 1 speed, the flash systems were semi-covert and were virtually impossible to detect from the ground and 3) image intensified camera, the sensor was electronic and the image could be made sharper through the electronic, versus the use of a larger lens.
Bill moved to Electro Dynamics in Rolling Meadows in 1985 and retired in 1996. Bill’s primary focus while at E.D. was to re-build the engineering department. One of the largest projects his team worked on was the development of a safety device for nuclear warheads.
Bill was able to locate his birth mother’s family in 2004 living in Jacksonville, FL. His mother and brother had passed away, but his brother’s wife, Pat and 2 children, Mary Lynn and James readily accepted him.
Survivors include his wife of 58 years, June S. Nickel (nee Sprungman); children, Robert Nickel, Bonnie Motley, Barbara Godsey and William A. Nickel; grandchildren, Rebecca-Joy (Adam) Rentschler, William (Lauren) Lindberg, Dustin (Thea) Motley and Zachary Nickel; great-grandson, Dylan Lindberg; and his sister, Nancy Scholten.
Bill was preceded in death by his parents, Edward Arthur and Emma M. (nee Houglum) Nickel.
Memorials appreciated to Christ Lutheran Church, 41 S. Rohlwing Rd., Palatine, IL, 60074, or Vitas Hospice, 580 Waters Edge, Suite 100, Lombard, IL 60148.
