Kip Siegel

Keeve M. (Kip) Siegel (1923-1975) was a US physicist. He was a professor of Physics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI, and the founder of Conductron Corporation, a high tech producer of electronic equipment which was absorbed by McDonnell Douglas Corporation; KMS Industries and KMS Fusion. KMS Fusion was the first and only private sector company to pursue controlled thermonuclear fusion research through use of laser technology.

Keeve Milton Siegel was born in New York City to David Porter Siegel, Chief of the Criminal Division of the US Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, and Rose Siegel (née Jelin). His uncle, Isaac Siegel, was a member of Congress.

He graduated from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1948 with a Bachelor of Science degree. He joined Michigan's Upper Atmospheric Physics Group, which had been set up that year, as a research associate and became the head of the group a year later. He continued in this position until early 1952, by which time he had completed his Master of Science degree from RPI (1950), and got married (1951). Due to the importance of their work to what would become NORAD, it was renamed the Theory and Analysis Group in early 1952. Kip chaired the Organizing Committee of the URSI-sponsored Symposium on Electromagnetic Wave Theory held at the University of Michigan, 20-25 June 1955.

In 1967, his long-term relationship with the University of Michigan came to an end when he accepted an appointment as visiting professor at Oakland University. Not long afterwards, he also resigned from Conductron, the company which he had founded, in a disagreement with the majority stockholder (McDonnell-Douglas) as to how the corporation should expand, and immediately started KMS Industries. Many of his former employees at Conductron joined him in his new venture, which prospered immediately. In the early 1970s he established KMS Fusion, a subsidiary of KMS Industries, to pursue the development of nuclear fusion as an energy source.

...
Wikipedia