George Bryer Carpenter
March 10, 1937-Sept. 6, 2025
Palo Alto, California

George B. Carpenter passed away on September 6, 2025. He was born in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, to Bryer and Winogene Carpenter on March 10, 1937, and grew up in Kinsella, a small town about 90 miles to the southeast of Edmonton. The family lived in a Canadian National Railway (CN) station (since Bryer was the stationmaster) and raised purebred cattle on their nearby farm, where George helped build a house later in life. After high school he went to the University of Alberta where he majored in electrical engineering. He earned money for college during the summer by doing surveying work for CN. His success as an undergraduate earned him a scholarship to Stanford for graduate school in 1960.

At Stanford, he studied the interaction of very-low-frequency radio waves with the magnetosphere, including the effects of the high-altitude nuclear tests being conducted by the US and USSR at the time. This research led to a job at Stanford Research Institute (SRI) in 1963. Later projects at SRI included calibrating GPS satellites using the Stanford Dish. He was also involved in the development ground-penetrating radar and its use on a trip he took to Kuwait after the Iraq War. In 1963 he married Carol Lubman in her hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Afterwards they settled in Palo Alto and raised a family. In 1968, he became a US citizen. After a 40 year career at SRI, he formally retired as the Director of the Geoscience and Engineering Center, but continued to consult with SRI, often working with Los Alamos National Lab.

After retirement, he pursued his many hobbies including model trains, stamp collecting and travel. His lifelong interest in CN, no doubt, stemmed from his personal connection to the railway in his youth. He collected brass engine models and curated a vast database of train photos. Travel included many cruises in the Caribbean and Mediterranean, and to Alaska with his extended family.

George is survived by his wife Carol, daughter Catie, son Jim, and sisters Pat and Alice. He was predeceased by his daughter, Jill, and his brothers Bert, Bill and James.