Erwin Vogel, An Engineer Well-versed In Figures And Humor, 88, Washington Post

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/27/AR2009102703825.html

Erwin Vogel, 88

An engineer well-versed in figures and humor

By Patricia Sullivan, Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Erwin Vogel regarded himself as a "celestial mechanic" amid aeronautical
engineers. Mr. Vogel, who died at age 88 Oct. 21 [2009] of respiratory
failure, was an engineer, but he never felt bound by rigid rules of behavior
or the expectations of others.

An unconventional man with an unusual streak of humor, he would don the
attire of Benjamin Franklin when visiting the University of Virginia,
founded by Franklin's cohort, Thomas Jefferson. In his work-related
engineering reports, he dropped poems in the prose, just to see if anyone
was reading them.

He also shared his ideas with Washington Post readers during the past 37
years, when he lived in Gaithersburg.

"For the past 50 years, college education has been the same as the price of
an automobile suitable to the parents who are sending their children to such
an institution," he wrote in 1986. "For example: Ivy League school tuition
was, and is, about the same as the price of a Cadillac (It may have been a
Pierce Arrow or Packard, once). Liberal arts colleges of the second rank
charge about as much as a Ford or Chevrolet, while the state university
tuition corresponds to the cost of a three- or four-year-old secondhand
vehicle. . . . Considering the greater availability of scholarships and
loans, for both the poorer students as well as the upper-middle class, costs
in real terms may well be much lower now than they were 50 years ago."

He also figured the cost of a gallon of gasoline to the minimum-wage earner,
noting that in 1938, he could buy a gallon of gas for 30 minutes of work at
his 25 cents-per-hour job.

"In today's market," he wrote in 1979, "a person employed at the minimum
wage can buy a gallon of gas with only 15 to 18 minutes of labor. The
product in terms of real economics has become cheaper!"

Mr. Vogel was born June 23, 1921, in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany, and at age
12 moved to Brussels. At age 16, he immigrated to New York City but never
completed his high school education, a fact of which he was proud. He
nevertheless graduated from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken,
N.J., and in 1944 received a master's degree there in mechanical
engineering. He also studied electrical engineering at what is now the
Polytechnic Institute of New York University.

He then worked for Republic Aviation Corp. in Bethpage, N.Y., later telling
readers of The Post's letters to the editor in 1997 that he and his wife
considered buying a home in Levittown when it was under construction on Long
Island. But the homes were too small for their growing family, the couple
concluded.

"So I suggested we buy two houses next to each other and connect them with a
breezeway. Then we'd have two kitchens, two TV sets, kids in one house and
peace in the other," he wrote. "And after the kids finally left the nest, we
could sell one house. But my dear wife didn't agree, and we bought a single
ranch house for somewhat more than the two Levitt houses would have cost."

In 1972, he moved to the Washington area and began working for what was then
Fairchild Space Industries in Germantown. His specialty was guidance and
control of unmanned satellites. He retired in 1991.

Libertarian in his politics, he ran unsuccessfully for the Maryland House in
1978, losing to Democrat Jerry Hyatt.

He was co-founder of the Seneca Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in
Gaithersburg. He was also a longtime member of Schlaraffia, a worldwide
German-speaking society dedicated to humor and friendship. In that
brotherhood, he was known as "Olwel." He was also a member and study group
leader of American University's Osher Lifelong Institute for Learning in
Retirement. He died at Kingsway Arms Nursing Center in Schenectady, N.Y.,
where he moved two months ago.

His wife, Gabrielle Vogel, died in 1989.

Survivors include four children, Susan Neulist of Carrboro, N.C., Nancy
Ginsburg of Schenectady, Alan Vogel of Trumansburg, N.Y., and Richard Vogel
of Belmont, Mass.; nine grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.