Terrence J. “Terry” Geoghegan

Geoghegan, Terrence J. “Terry” of Hingham, December 30, 2006. Devoted husband of the late Virginia H. (Hoppe) Geoghegan. Beloved father of Terrence Geoghegan and his wife Patricia of Concord, Janice G. and her husband Frank Fortunato of Eliot, ME and Paul Geoghegan and his wife Christine of Merrimac. Loving brother of Catherine Foley of Cambridge, Mary Powers of Hyde Park and the late Thomas Geoghegan and Winifred Mayer. Cherished grandfather of Alex, Lindsay, Eileen, Andrew and Johanna. Relatives and friends are respectfully invited to attend the funeral from the Pyne Keohane Funeral Home, 21 Emerald St., HINGHAM, Thursday at 9 AM. Funeral Mass in Saint Paul’s Church, Hingham at 10 AM. Visiting hours Wednesday 2-4 & 7-9 PM. Burial in Saint Joseph’s Cemetery, West Roxbury. Terry was born in Roxbury moved to Hyde Park at an early age. Terry graduated from Hyde Park High School in 1938 with an outstanding record in athletics and academics. He was selected to many All Scholastic football teams and was a member of two record setting high school relay teams in the Boston Garden. After graduation he received a full football scholarship to Boston College (BC). He played on the BC football team which went to the Cotton Bowl in 1940 and the 1941 team which went to the Sugar Bowl and had an undefeated season claiming the national championship. Terry graduated from BC with a BS in Physics (cum laude) in 1942 and was commissioned directly into the Navy as an Ensign. He attended Harvard and MIT in Naval Radar School and was assigned in 1943 to duty in the Pacific Theater where he joined Argus Unit #5 on Guadalcanal. The Argus Units were set up to provide Radar Air Warning for the Marines on their invasions as the Marines did not have the training or equipment. Terry was the officer in charge of a mobile Radar which went ashore with the Marines on D-day in the invasion of Bougainville. The Radar was set up in five hours and provided air raid protection for the beach head for three months against the Japanese raids from Rabaul until the Marines were relieved by the Army. The Argus Unit #5 was withdrawn to Guadalcanal and disbanded and the personnel reassigned to new units. Terry was assigned to Argus Unit #14 which continued training awaiting a new invasion. Argus #14 received orders to proceed to the Cental Pacific to participate in the invasion of the Ulithi Atoll. There the Unit had the responsibility to provide protection to a major portion of the Pacific Fleet as it anchored in the vast Atoll. He returned to the United States in February, 1945. On Feb 22 1945 he married his high school sweetheart Virginia Hoppe and they were married for 61years until her death in May 2006. He was assigned to the US Navy Yard Charleston South Carolina until the end of the war and was officially discharged as a Senior Grade Lieutenant in January 1946. After discharge, Terry accepted a position as a civilian research engineer with the Naval Research Labs in Boston and later with the Naval Development center in Johnsville, Pennsylvania working on the original development of the AWACS airborne Radar System. His area of research was to determine the best way to store the returned radar signals. This led to the development of converting the electrical signals into ultrasonic sound waves and storing them in a complex forked path within a disc of fused quartz. This became known as an ultrasonic delay line so that the signals from one return could be compared with the next return. In this way the fixed signals could be cancelled out and only the moving targets displayed. This system was called MTI (moving target indication) In 1951 Terry joined Laboratory for Electronics in Boston to establish a design and manufacturing facility to supply ultrasonic delay lines to the major electronic companies in the radar field. This was successful and he became a national expert and was granted two US Patents in the field. In 1957 he left LFE to found his own company Microsonics, originally with two employees in the Old Naval Shipyard in Hingham. The company was profitable from the beginning and established a reputation as a leader in the field. He later sold Microsonics to Sangamo Electric where he became a Vice President. After retiring from Sangamo, Terry became an Assistant Secretary for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs. Following this position he was appointed by then Governor Edward King as Commissioner of the Metropolitan District Commission where he initiated a reorganization of the MDC. After retiring from public service he re-entered private industry and worked for Bewick Associates and Hi-G of Windsor Locks CT. He ended his professional career as a manager of a micro-electronics division of Raytheon Inc. He retired to Hingham, MA, where he enjoyed his property and family. As part of his retirement he enjoyed supporting Boston College where he endowed a scholarship for students studying physics. Donations in memory of Mr. Geoghegan may be made to Old Colony Hospice, 1 Credit Union Way Randolph, MA 02368.