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| Neal Bert Kindig
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| NO. 17364 • 26 July 1928 – 7 October 1988
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Died 7 October 1988 in Bath, Maine, aged 60 years.
Ashes were scattered in the Rocky Mountains.
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COLONEL KINDIG WAS HONORED with the Meritorious Service Award in
recognition of honorable service in 1980, the same year he was transferred to
the Retired Reserves. His contributions to the Army Reserves from 1955‑80
were in electronic technology, technical German translations and pulmonary
physiology.
Neal Kindig was born 26 July 1928 in Medicine Lodge, Kansas, to Bruce and
Hyacinth Kindig. He had a distinguished high school career, winning the
Westinghouse Science Talent Search (1946) and the Bausch & Lomb National
Science Award (1946).
After graduating as valedictorian from Medicine Lodge High School in
1946, he accepted an appointment to the West Point Military Academy. He had an
academically and athletically distinguished career at the Point, earning the
award as No. 1 in the subject of Ordnance in the graduating Class of 1950 and
commissioned second lieutenant, Signal Corps.
Lieutenant Kindig was assigned to the European Command in 1950 and served
in Germany in the 97th Signal Operation Battalion as radio operator and
cryptographer. In 1954, Captain Kindig attended the Signal School at Fort Monmouth,
New Jersey, and was subsequently assigned to Fort Gordon as chief Engineer of
the TV branch. He was honorably discharged in August 1955 and became a Reserve
officer.
Now a civilian, Neal concentrated on studies in electrical engineering at
the University of Colorado, earning a master's in 1957. This was the beginning
of a long and distinguished career in teaching from 1957 until his retirement
from the university in 1983, and in research from 1964‑‑88.
Neal started teaching electronics in 1957 at the University of Colorado
and took a leave of absence for two years, 1962‑64, to study for a Ph.D
in electrical engineering at Stanford University. His work on photoemission
studies of the band structure of semiconductors resulted in eight published
papers.
In 1969, Neal started consulting with the Pulonary Functions Lab at
Fitzsimmons Army Hospital in Denver. He combined logic and mathematical
respiration which resulted in a computer-based system that measures the
diffusion capacity of a single breath. This method continues to be used
effectively at Fitzsimmons.
In 1979‑80, he was appointed a research fellow at the Webb‑Waring
Lung Institute, University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. His work with
physicians focused on the critical problem of patients undergoing resuscitation
from cardiac arrest or from battlefield injuries. He helped develop a buffer
system, the medical patent which he shares, and which promises to revolutionize
the care of the critically ill. He is the principal author or contributor to
over 50 professional articles on medical research.
Dr. Kindig moved professionally across three fields ‑ solid state
physics, digital electronics, and biomedical engineering - using knowledge
gained in one and applied to the other.
Neal married Jean Matthews in 1960; their son David was born in 1963 at
Stanford, and their daughter Susan was born in 1965 in Boulder. He was an
ardent outdoor enthusiast who eagerly sought the challenges of the high
Colorado peaks in the summers and the ski slopes in the winters.
He was a kind, gentle man, a respected professor, a dedicated researcher
and loving family man whose friends, family and colleages will miss him.
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USMA 1950