John Miles Krase ’44

JOHN DIED of cancer July 17, 1991. He lived a superb life: creative, loving, adventurous, and deserving of much broader exposure. He graduated from Princeton Phi Beta Kappa and magna CLIM laude with a degree in mechanical engineering. Sandy McDonnell, Ad Muriyan, and Van Olcott were his roommates; Dial Lodge his club. He served three years in the Navy with sea duty aboard destroyers on both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He married Jean Flaherty in 1946 and went to work for Allis Chalmers, with a stint at Fairchild in Oak Ridge. His consuming involvement with gas turbines and nuclear reactor applications began with G.E. in Cincinnati. He received his masters at the university there. He played a major role in G.E's aircraft nuclear propulsion efforts, a program almost at fruition when funds were withdrawn. John, with Eugene Haake, holds a patent for the forcedcirculation, boilingwater nuclear reactor. He joined General Atomics in 1961, where he became general manager for the hightemperature, gascooled reactor. He retired in Dec. 1984. Throughout his life he was dedicated to boat building and sailing, a love he pursued on both coasts, both oceans, and on the Mediterranean. He lived his final dreambuying a 43foot Amphitrite Ketch, NEREID, and taking her through 700 miles, and 300 canals of France, to the Med and the Aegean. Fighting terminal cancer he took a final year to sail her home, across the Atlantic, in the Rally Crossing Race to Barbados, abeam Venezuela, and up the Carribean to Florida. He completed his dream. He leaves three married children, John Jr. and daughters Kathy Stone and Lyn Olsson, and three grandchildren. Jean, in their last years together, went back to college for a B.A. and M.A. in archaeology. She maintains their life. We mourn him with you, jean.

The Class of 1944