1950

George Greene ’50, a mechanical engineer and pioneer of the clean room industry, died Jan. 4, 2024. During his career, Greene designed a high-bay clean room for Lockheed Aircraft that later became the main assembly area for Lockheed’s satellites, both military and civilian, throughout the Cold War. Greene’s successful design became known to the engineers and scientists developing a new set of electronic components of increasingly sophisticated design and he was hired to design clean rooms for Fairchild Semiconductor and its various progeny including Intel. Greene’s semiconductor work led to projects in another new industry rising in Silicon Valley. His signature project, the IBM Almaden Research Center, allowed scientists to manipulate individual atoms for the first time.

02 May 2024