Bill Burgess: Greatly Loved, Much Missed and Very Fondly Remembered!

Bill died at 11 am on October 10, 2017 in Arizona at 75 years young, with all of his close family present. His wife Myra, Greg, his eldest son, who came from Scotland to help over the last few weeks, Greg's wife, (Mya), and their two daughters arrived in time to be with Bill before he finally gave up the fight, and his youngest son, Paul, who had been with them all the time, and of great help as they all struggled with Myra and Bill's ill health.

Bill had been finding life increasingly more difficult these last few years with severe arthritis making walking difficult, and a multi-year struggle with lung cancer, going through surgery and radical chemotherapy, but ever upbeat, always looking for the silver lining, and always with a "to the point" joke to tell at everyone's expense, and most often with a glass of good malt scotch nearby. In typical fashion, he dealt with the weakening legs by getting a powerful electric motor scooter to aid his getting around (and he enjoyed terrorizing walkers and fellow-shoppers when he visited the local shopping centers. Some of us remember an unlikely, yet very joyous, celebration lunch at Domaine Chandon, celebrating the announcement of Bill being declared cancer free in April 2015, after his very long and very hard fight overcoming lung cancer.

Born, educated and wed in Scotland, he matured in cryogenic engineering at the CERN laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, the European center for high energy physics founded just after the end of WW II, and supported by some 22 European countries. There he worked under the direction of Tom Taylor. He was well liked, a very hard worker and anxious to learn all he could in this new, exciting environment. His practical and intuitive knowledge of cryogenics was admired and valued by colleagues and he contributed to the successful installation and operation of the CERN ISR, (Intersecting Storage Ring) low-beta insertion, the first system of superconducting magnets routinely operated in a particle collider. Later, he went on to work on LEP, (the Large Electron Project), superconducting high-luminosity insertion, which again was brought to a timely and successful completion. He left CERN with a record of project successes and had earned the reputation of being a strong team player. His many friendships from that era lasted throughout his SLAC time, indeed until his death.

Bill was recruited in 1988 to take on a challenging job at SLAC where the first electron-positron linear collider was being built. Working directly with Bill Ash, he was part of the team building the SLD detector for the new collider Tiny beam spot sizes, (one micron), and high magnetic field gradient super-conducting quadrupole design were the technical parameters forced by the science, and Bill's first job was the design of the liquid helium system that brought in the cryo-coolant, but could not take up too much space. This was Bill's first challenge. His second was moving into a leadership engineering role, in a new lab with new colleagues. All of this he accomplished well. He quickly built a cadre of friends, created a technical team, together with Bill Ash, and integrated into the SLD experiment quickly and effectively. His proposed technical solution faced critical opposition from some of the local conservative engineers, but in the end his ingenious design worked beautifully!

Also as part of the SLD/SLC project, Bill managed to rescue a considerable amount of the cryogenic equipment from the Texas SSC project. It required political as well as technical skills of the first order to make the two manufacturers, (Air Liquide in France and Sulzer in Switzerland), acquiesce to the terms of their contracts. But Bill did so in typical fashion, and actually made all of it work reliably, as specified. He also did a substantial rework on the spin-rotator magnets for the SLC Polarized Gun project, and engineered the Accelerator Polarized Gun cooling system, and later the repositioning and modification of the helium liquefier used for the hydrogen targets for the experiments at End Station A. And still later, he was responsible for the testing and commissioning of the large, new BaBar superconducting magnet, which included taking many trips to Europe to help in bringing that construction project to completion.

He also had another important skill, (especially for someone who would retire in a few more years), and that was his good habit of good documentation. He managed that aspect of the Cryogenic Group very well. Any question about any component on any system under his charge would be answered in short order. He also brought all of the cryogenic control systems up to current technology of digital and computer control. His infectious enthusiasm was only outdone by his honesty. One could not help liking him, and his ability to manage/build team spirit and develop technical know-how as he mentored younger colleagues was something he was proud of. One of his technical consultant colleagues, Hans Quack, said on the occasion of Bill's retirement, "Bill brought interesting solutions to cryogenic problems, but more importantly, he brought color into our lives." So true.

Bill was one of those rare people who seemed larger than life, always with a great big cheerful smile on his face, and he will never be forgotten by those who spent time with him. He made lifelong friendships wherever he worked or even traveled. European colleagues invited him to their homes and would stay at Bill and Myra's home when visiting the United States. He and his beloved Myra were amazing hosts at their well known parties and dinners. He loved to barbecue and to entertain. And indeed, Bill really loved life.

He is remembered with great warmth and with admiration for his hard work and engineering talent.

This article has been pulled together by friends and colleagues who worked with Bill Burgess: M. Breidenback, A. Candia, W. Craddock. V. Flynn, D. leith, S. St. Lorant, M. Smith. We are grateful for help from CERN from Tom Taylor and Philippe Lebrun.