Howard David Greyber was born in New York City and originally had the surname Goldgraber. He graduated from the Stuyvesant High School at age of 16. He graduated from the Cooper Union four years later with a degree in mechanical engineering.
After graduating from the Cooper Union, Howard went to work for Kallex Corporation and eventually moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee where the US Army Uranium enrichment plant designed by Kallex was built and operated. Howard next joined the US Navy and earned an officer’s commission. He worked as a radar officer on the USS Crescent City. He was discharged as a full lieutenant in 1949 and served as a reserve officer until 1955. He used the G.I. Bill to attend graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania where he earned his PhD in physics.
It is unknown when he changed his last name to Greyber, but he started publishing technical papers using that name in 1960, when he was employed with General Electric, Missile and Ordnance Systems Division, in Philadelphia. He next worked at Geophysics Corporation of America (later GSA) in Boston. From the late 1960s to 1972, Howard Greyber was at the Martin-Marietta Corporation, where he worked on the Viking Project.
Howard Greyber was well known for his 50 years of advocating for the Strong Magnetic Field (SMF) model for quasars and active galaxies. His career included contributions to the Viking Project as well as classified work for Martin-Marietta.
Howard Greyber received the Cooper Union Presidential Citation in 1973 and was inducted into The Cooper Union Hall of Fame in 2009.
He died on November 22, 2016.
References
- Obituary: Howard David Greyber, Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 2021, Vol. 53, id. 0308
- Bulletin of the American Association of Astronomers, Feb. 26, 2021.Howard D. Greyber (1923–2016) · Vol. 53, Issue 2 (aas.org)