Robert E. Michaud ’46

Robert E. Michaud ’46 died February 7, 2014, in Bedford, Mass. He was born in Salem, Mass., on June 6, 1925, and prepared for college at Brunswick High School and Deering High School, where he was an honors student and captain of the track team. He also participated enthusiastically in musical theater. He attended Bowdoin from 1943 to 1944, a member of Zeta Psi fraternity, and was awarded a certificate of honor. During World War II, he entered the Navy V-12 officer training program at Bates College. He served to lieutenant junior grade aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71). Through the V-12 program, he earned a bachelor of science degree in 1947 and a master’s degree in electrical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1949. He worked at Raytheon on the RAYDAC, a one-of-a-kind computer that was started in 1949, finished in 1953, and installed at the Naval Air Missile Test Center at Point Mugu, Calif. He and other members of the RAYDAC team later co-founded Computer Control Corporation. He went on to co-found Keymatch, Inc., which pioneered advances in the use of bar codes in supermarkets, and Easel Corporation, where he designed an early model of the touch screen and where he served as vice president of engineering. He later worked as a program manager for Identicon and Incoterm and retired from Easel as director of hardware development. He sang with a Gilbert and Sullivan choral group, as well as the Chorus Pro Musica and the choir at Boston’s Church of the Advent. He also gave numerous solo performances. He volunteered for many years at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum in Brookline, Mass., where he served as a trustee and as chairman of the exhibit committee. He is survived by his wife of more than sixty years, Ellen Hatch Michaud; daughters Elizabeth and Virginia; and one grandson.

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