Subject: Re: Frank Cooper passed away From: Malcolm Slaney <malcolm(at)INTERVAL.COM> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 1999 17:37:13 -0700 X-Web-Page:http://www.interval.com/~malcolm/pubs.htmlA colleague of mine wrote this description of Frank Cooper. He retired to Palo Alto and I was lucky to have a few meetings with him. I concur with Andrew. -- Malcolm From: Andrew Singer <singer(at)interval.com> Subject: Re: Frank Cooper passed away Frank Cooper was Director of Haskins Labs from its creation after until the mid 1970's. He was probably best known as the principal designer of the Pattern Playback, the first speech synthesizer to be based on spectral features, but he made many other contributions to speech research and he did indeed serve on the "18 minute gap" team. He was also one of the best research managers I've ever worked for or known. A deeply humble person, Frank (I almost wrote "Dr. Cooper", I was much too junior to call him Frank when I worked for him in the mid-60's) was nevertheless *the* driving force for the research staff at Haskins. He did this so quietly, it almost seemed like his hand was invisible. He was equally respected by young turks and senior staffers, I think because his primary activity was always listening. Then, once he had a thorough understanding, he would offer a really thoughtful comment. These comments were always worth listening to --- I can remember one that saved me three weeks of work. Above all I remember his kindness and humanity... we have lost one of our very best. At 05:14 PM 8/18/99 -0400, you wrote: >I just learned (via a Univ of Ill alum newsletter) that Frank >Cooper, who was 90, passed away in Feb, 1999. It may be >that this information has not been previously announced publicly. > >Frank Cooper was one of the members of the Nixon tape analysis team. >I believe he was with Haskins Labs; but others, I am sure, know more than I >about his detailed contributions. > >Jont >-- >Jont B. Allen >AT&T Labs-Research, Shannon Laboratory >180 Park Ave., Room E161, Florham Park NJ, 07932-0971 >973/360-8545voice, x7111fax, http://www.research.att.com/~jba > -My favorite URL: www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/history > -Imagination is more important than knowledge. --Albert Einstein >