Oscar Berendsohn
by Phil Pressel
Oscar was my friend and colleague at Perkin-Elmer for 28 years. He was a very kind and giving man who was always ready and willing to give help and advice to all of us at PE. He was an expert metallurgist and materials process engineer. On two key programs at PE, the Hexagon spy satellite and the Hubble Space Telescope he provided time and cost savings expertise that improved designs of critical assemblies.
He was instrumental in solving many head scratching material problems during the design and operational phases of these and other programs. He taught us about special material coatings that helped protect against corrosion and he was the key to maintaining focus of the Hexagon camera over temperature changes by providing the exact proper heat treatment for a material most of us knew nothing about when we started work on the program. That material was Invar, a steel whose thermal expansion properties closely matched that of the glass mirrors.
He was also a good conversationalist and we often talked of many non-engineering topics, from both of our escapes from the Nazis to music and politics. I will miss him a lot. Phil Pressel.