Posted by Terry Powers on January 12, 2023:

WILLIAM F. LUEBBERT 1949 Cullum No. 16797-1949 | May 20, 2017 | Died in Lebanon, NH Cremated. Interred in West Point Cemetery, NY William Frederick "Bill" Luebbert was born November 5, 1927 in San Francisco, CA. He grew up in Los Angeles but returned to the Bay area for summers and holidays with his grandparents. Bill attended the Harvard School in North Hollywood CA, graduating in 1944. While there, he was a member of the ROTC program. He also took courses at California Institute of Technology, including a chemistry course from Professor Linus Pauling, the future double Nobel Prize winner. Initially, Bill sought an appointment to USNA, in part because of his family's nautical heritage. His congressman, unfortunately, didn't have any appointments left for Navy but offered one for West Point. Bill agreed to this life-changing option and headed across country in June of 1945. This officially made him a World War II veteran, along with many classmates who were actually in the war. At West Point, Bill participated in the Radio Club all four years, having earned his FCC radio operator license at age 15. He was also an avid skier and member of the Ski Club. The Howitzer said, "Bill never has had much trouble with the Academic Department, nor will he in his chosen branch." Prophetic words for the future professor! During his junior year, Bill met classmate Dick Connell's sister, Nancy, at a Sunday afternoon dance at the Hotel Thayer. Following graduation on June 7, 1949 with a B.S. degree in electrical engineering, Bill married Nancy Connell in the Cadet Chapel. Nancy had graduated from Wilson College a day earlier. Bill and Nan headed off to Ground General School at Fort Riley KS, followed by Signal School Basic Training at Fort Monmouth, NJ. Bill joined the army of occupation in Germany, first at Heidelberg, as a member of Signal Corps. He then moved to Pirmasens, where he built a transmitter station. In 1953, Bill headed to the West Coast for graduate work at Stanford University, culminating in a Ph.D. By 1956, Bill and Nan had three daughters: Elizabeth (born in Heidelberg, Germany), Susan (Erie, PA) and Nancy (San Francisco, CA). Next, Bill returned to the Army Signal Laboratory at Fort Monmouth, NJ as R&D project officer for the Army's first militarized data processing computers. This included MOBIle DIgital Computer, a transistorized computer on a single flatbed trailer. Called MOBIDIC, it helped inspire Bill's love of whales for the rest of his life. Bill designed the FIELDATA code which was later adopted for Joint Services standardization. In 1961, Bill returned to West Point. The 1961-62 academic year at West Point found several academic deans collaborating to champion the use of computers. They set radical goals (for the day): every cadet should have hands-on exposure to computers beginning in their first year, and high priority should be given to making computer power available in every academic department, every cadet company and, eventually, to every classroom of the academy. Major William Luebbert was selected to lead this effort and was assigned to the Dean's staff as director for computing for the new central Academic Computing Center. He brought the first digital computer, the RECOMP II (a General Electric 225 digital mainframe), to USMA in 1962, taught the first computer elective course (Electricity 483: Digital Computers) in 1963, and designed the West Point Basic programming language. During this time, he was granted effective tenure as one of West Point's first four permanent associate professors. By 1967, Lieutenant Colonel Luebbert was head of USMA's Educational Resources & Technology Division. He was awarded the Automation Educator of the Year award by Business Publications International, in recognition of his "significant contribution to automation of educational systems." From 1963 to 1969, Bill also worked with the Industrial College of the Armed Forces (now the Eisenhower School of the National Defense University). For this work, he was awarded the Joint Service Commendation Medal in 1969. Bill spent the 1970-71 academic year at the Army War College (Carlisle, PA) as USMA Fellow in Computer Science, pursuing new dimensions in computer supported analysis of the political and behavioral sciences. He received the Army Commendation Medal (with oak leaf cluster) for this work. During the 1960s and 1970s, Bill had collaborated on academic computing initiatives with other institutions. He worked with Dartmouth College faculty members, including Professors John Kemeny and Tom Kurtz, and spent a sabbatical semester at Dartmouth in 1975. This prompted the Luebberts to move to Hanover, NH in 1977 upon his retirement from the Army. Bill and Nan became residents of the Upper Valley for nearly 40 years. For several years, Colonel Luebbert held positions at Thayer School of Engineering and the Kiewit Computation Center at Dartmouth. Post-Dartmouth, he established the Computer Literacy Institute, a one-man enterprise to educate the marketplace on new computers. In the 1990s, he took part in education-training-implementation projects for the International Executive Services Corps (IESC) a nonprofit organization dedicated to equitable, sustainable economic growth in developing countries, which took him to Albania, Egypt, Nepal, the Soviet Union and Zimbabwe. Over his career, Bill published several dozen technical articles. He also published a series of books on "What's Where in the Apple" (about the Apple II series). Colonel Luebbert is survived by his wife of 67 years, Nan; daughters Elizabeth (Peter) Stoll of Albuquerque, NM; Susan Luebbert (Chris Hill) of Pittsburgh, PA; and Nancy Luebbert (Jim Wallis) of Moscow ID. He leaves four grandchildren and a great-grandson. After a funeral service in the Old Cadet Chapel, Colonel Luebbert was buried at the West Point Cemetery at USMA on August 6, 2018.

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