Pottle

Christopher Pottle, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering, died Feb. 15 at his home in Oxford, Maine. He was 79.

Pottle came to Cornell in 1962, serving on the faculty of electrical and computer engineering until he retired in 1998.

He was a founder of the Department of Computer Science and was known for his forward-thinking approach, constantly incorporating new technologies in a field that changed rapidly during his 36 years of teaching. He was also known for his dedication to creating a positive educational experience for his students and could often be found with them, sleeves rolled up, hard at work in the labs that were a central part of the electrical engineering curriculum.

Pottle was born in New Haven, Conn., Feb. 14, 1932. He earned a bachelor's degree in English from Yale in 1953. After a year at the Sperry Gyroscope Comp. on Long Island, N.Y., he served in the U.S. Army in 1954-56 as an engineer at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland.

He earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1962 and was a Fulbright scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, Germany, 1958-59 and at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany, 1966-67. Pottle spent sabbatical leaves at the IBM Watson Research Laboratories, at the General Electric Company's Electric Utility Systems Engineering Department and at Carnegie Mellon University.

Pottle is survived by his wife, Marcia; children; and many nieces, nephews, cousins and friends.

Funeral services will be held March 2 at 2 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church in Norway, Maine. Donations, in lieu of flowers, can be sent to: Christ Episcopal Church, 35 Paris St., Norway, ME 04268; Thompson Lake Environmental Association, P.O. Box 25, Oxford, ME, 04270; or Episcopal Peace Fellowship, 637 South Dearborn St., Chicago, IL 60605-1839. Online condolences may be expressed to the family at http://www.oxfordhillsfuneralservices.com.