Gordy died Sept. 15, 2014, in a Rockville, Md., nursing home.
He was active in band and track in high school and was an Eagle Scout. At Princeton, Gordy participated in band and track and was a member of Dial Lodge. He roomed with John Foster and Scott Robinson and accelerated to graduate in 1943, after which he served as a radar specialist in a destroyer squadron in the South Pacific.
Following graduate work in physics at Columbia, he married Victoria McKibben in 1948 and moved to Bermuda to establish a research lab specializing in underwater acoustics. His crowning achievement was to help the Navy locate the wreckage of the USS Scorpion after it went down in 1968. In 1972, he moved to Falls Church, Va., to lead the ocean-science department of the Office of Naval Research. He supervised some 30 program managers in basic marine research, which involved 100,000 travel miles a year visiting facilities around the world. In 1969, he was honored with the Military Oceanographic Award.
Predeceased by Victoria, his wife of 45 years, he married Mickey Wilson, who survives him after 20 years of marriage, along with his children, Elizabeth and Gregg ’75; three grandchildren; and brother John.