A person who sent radio signals from the Hector Airport to downtown Fargo in the mid-1920s received national recognition a little more than 20 years later for designing a system to send radio signals much further - from the moon to the Earth.

In the Sept. 9, 1948, edition of Time magazine, it was reported that John Hutcheson "was excitedly designing a radio station to be rocketed to the moon where it would broadcast back to Earth."

Hutcheson, a master of radio technology, was the "key man in design and engineering of Westinghouse's vast radar program" during World War II and a founding member of the influential RAND Corp. - a nonprofit institution organized to improve American policy and decision making through research and analysis.

Hutcheson also helped develop equipment for the first atomic bomb test at the Bikini Atoll and was instrumental in creating weapons for the U.S. during the Korean conflict.

John Alister Hutcheson was born Jan. 21, 1905, in Park River, to the Rev. William J. and Janet (Avery) Hutcheson.

In the mid-1920s, Hutcheson's father moved to Fargo to become executive secretary of the service and education branch of the Masons, which allowed him to teach his popular "Come and See" program full-time. John Hutcheson would spend the summers in Fargo tinkering with ways to transmit radio signals.

After completing high school, Hutcheson enrolled at the University of North Dakota and graduated in 1926 with a degree in electrical engineering. That same year, he accepted a position with Westinghouse.

Westinghouse and General Electric were the leading companies in radio transmission technology, and these two companies, along with AT&T, formed RCA to control their American patents.

In 1932, the government forced GE and Westinghouse to divest RCA, which took most of the radio broadcast capabilities with it. However, Hutcheson, at Westinghouse, soon had another project to utilize his love of radio transmission - radar.

Radar, or RDF, as it was then called, was invented in Great Britain in 1904. However, the use of this system in identifying invading airplanes was not realized until 1935. Executives at Westinghouse saw a new opportunity, and soon the design and engineering division which included Hutcheson, began working on different models.

In October 1938, Westinghouse was given a contract by the military to provide a couple of different versions for use during Army maneuvers the next summer. The government realized the vulnerability of several key locations like the Panama Canal and Pearl Harbor, and Westinghouse agreed to furnish 100 radar units by the end of 1941.

The radar operators at Pearl Harbor identified airplanes in the sky on Jan. 7, 1941, but they were thought to be friendly planes.

In 1943, Hutcheson was promoted to associate director of the research laboratory at Westinghouse, and much of his work was focused on the war effort. Later that year, he was awarded an honorary doctorate of science degree from the University of North Dakota, and people began to address him as Dr. Hutcheson.

At the conclusion of the war, it was clear that a private institution needed to be organized to connect military planning with research and development decisions.

In 1946, the RAND Corp. was founded within the Douglas Aircraft Corp. Later, it was realized that this corporation should not be linked to one company but needed to be open to many companies and academic institutions. On May 14, 1948, RAND (research and development) was incorporated independently, and 11 leading individuals from industry and academia were chosen as charter members.

Hutcheson was one of the 11, and he served as a trustee of RAND until 1959.

In the fall of 1948, Hutcheson was given an erroneous report that the Army was preparing to launch a rocket to the moon in 18 months. Realizing a need for scientists to receive signals from the rocket as it approached the lunar surface, Hutcheson worked on devising a powerful lightweight transmitter that could be attached to the rocket.

In 1949, Hutcheson was promoted to director of the research laboratory at Westinghouse and was later named vice president of the company. He served in that capacity until 1965.

A longtime member of the National Academy of Science, Hutcheson was selected on July 1, 1965, to become the first full-time chair of the organization's division of engineering and industrial research. Hutcheson died in March of 1992.

(Written by Curt Eriksmoen and edited by Jan Eriksmoen. Reach the Eriksmoens by e-mail at cjeriksmoen@;cableone.net.)