Profiles in sonar: Reflections on F. V. Hunt

Frederick Vinton Hunt was one of the towering figures who helped to shepherd the development of SONAR, an acronym for Sound Navigation and Ranging, from its infancy to near maturity. We two authors of this paper had the great advantage and pleasure of having Ted Hunt as a mentor during the latter part of his career and the early stages of our own. In this presentation we outline briefly the history of SONARs development as a means of placing Hunt’s contributions in context. This would include largely his time at Harvard during the R&D phase of SONAR’s growth, followed by his role during the 25 years following WWII as educator. Ideas are discussed related to what features of his mentorship are responsible for creating the next generation of leaders in science and technology.