- Date Of Birth: January 5, 1945
- Date Of Death: February 16, 2021
- State: Colorado
William (Bill) McCutcheon Congdon, 76, of Centennial, Colorado passed away on February 16, 2021. He was born on January 5, 1945 in Brooklyn, New York to Gilbert and Alma (McCutcheon) Congdon. His family later moved to Bethesda, Maryland, where he attended Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School and played football. He went on to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry from the University of Maryland in 1971.
He married Mary Barbara Curlander, of Baltimore, on June 14, 1971. They moved to Denver, where they had three children and Bill started his career in Martin Marietta’s astronautics and missile groups, focusing on thermal protection systems. He became a leading subject matter expert in experimental, fabrication, and modeling methods for a variety of thermal protection system applications.
Bill joined Applied Research Associates (ARA) in 1992 and served as the director of the Ablatives Laboratory, which he founded and led in Centennial. He won many large contracts from NASA and, with his team, pioneered work on heat shields for NASA’s Ames Research Center and Jet Propulsion Laboratory, including heatshield engineering for the Mars Pathfinder mission. Most recently, he and his team developed thermal protection systems for applications to hypersonic technologies such as rocket nozzles and heat shields. Bill’s work has been featured at many conferences and NASA venues.
Bill was a loving and devoted father to his three children. He was very involved in their lives and particularly enjoyed vacationing with them at such favorite places as Ocean City, Maryland; Deerfield Beach, Florida; and the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado.
He is survived by his wife, Barbara Congdon, Minot, ND; three children: Alex Congdon, Crestone, CO; Christina (Adam) Carr, Minot, ND; and Jennifer (Sam) Jerding, Wheat Ridge, CO; three granddaughters, Ashley, Annie and Emma Carr, Minot, ND; and two sisters: Liz Kovanen, Jackson, WY; and Carol (Ray) Beplat, Jackson, WY.
