George Owen Squier Signal Corps research Wright Flyer Radio tractor Spark transmitter Stringing wire CLASS OF 1887 Squier followed graduation from West Point with advanced study at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins University, becoming in 1893 the army’s first Ph.D. Forty years of electrical research, including several basic radio patents, won him membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Squier in 1905 established the army’s first signals school at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and later the army’s radio research laboratory at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. He also pioneered army aviation, writing the first specifications for a military airplane in 1907 and later founding the army’s aviation research laboratory at Langley Field, Virginia. Appointed chief signal officer in 1917, Squier oversaw all army communications and aviation in World War I. Although his reputation took a bruising from wartime problems with aircraft production over which he had little control, Squier deserves great credit for institutionalizing research in the army. NEXT America at War William Crozier 1855–1942 Class of 1876 Henry Granville Sharpe 1858–1947 Class of 1880 George Owen Squier 1865–1934 Class of 1887
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