Obituary of Joseph Gerard Gorman

Joseph Gerard (Joe) Gorman of Longmont passed away March 11, 2009 at the HospiceCare Center of Louisville, CO. He was 82. Joe was born June 5, 1926 in Monessen, PA to Joseph William and Emily (Himmelsbach) Gorman. He attended Notre Dame University from 1943‑1944, and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1946 with an engineering degree as part of the V2 Naval Officer Training Program. He received his M.S. in Physics from the University of Virginia in 1948 and a PhD in Physics from Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1954.

He married Carol G. McDonough on February 11, 1961 in Venice, FL. Carol passed away April 28, 1978, after which Joseph married Mary Crane Williamson on May 21, 1983 in Princeton, NJ. They moved to Longmont from Murrysville, PA in 1985.

Joe worked as a research assistant for the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC 1948‑1950; Assistant to the Director at the Nuclear Research Center Carnegie Institute Of Technology from 1954‑1955; a Research Physicist at Westinghouse Research Labs in Pittsburgh from 1955‑1959; Senior Research Physicist 1959‑1962; Fellow Physicist 1962‑1985; Visiting Research Associate on Project Matterhorn at Princeton University from 1955‑1960, and Visiting Research Associate at the Forrestal Plasma Physics Labs 1960‑1972. He finished his career as an experimental physicist at the Westinghouse R&D center in Churchill, PA, retiring in 1985.

He was a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Princeton, NJ, and the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder. He also was a member of the American Physics Society. He loved to tinker and fix things around the house, and always remembered his time in the Soviet Union as part of a scientific exchange during the winter of 1970‑71.

He is survived by his wife Mary Crane Gorman of Longmont; one son Guy Gorman (Linden) of Richmond, VA; three daughters Christie Gorman McCarthy (Michael) of Denver, CO, Leslie White (Mark) of Duluth, MN, and Susan F. Williamson and her partner Reeta Roo of Occidental, CA; three grandchildren Carolyn E. McCarthy, Emily E. White, and Anya N. White; and two sisters Clarita Billick of Monessen, PA and Catherine Waters (Paul) of Washington, DC.