Mervin J. Kelly:Jllll'laefteg_-- en'" mot-............ .,........ tor

AN ELECTRIC CENTURY

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The director of Bell Laboratories during an exciting 23-year period is creditedwith asking the right questions and finding the best people to answer them

_!:ctronics history is often re­~ cordedasa panOniIl1a of dramatic-inventions-the computer, the

transistor, the integrated circuit, and soon-and it is sometimes easy to forgetthat brilliant human beingscreated theseinventions. It is even easier to forget thatthere were others who first spotted pro­mise in the young inventors, hired them,pointed them in promising directions,organized them into teams, and thenmarshaled the resources without whichtheir creativity might well have been fornaught.

The first research directors of AT&T,Eastman Kodak Co., General ElectricCo., and General Motors Corp. weresuch men. In more recent years the nameof Mervin Joe Kelly, a former researchdirector of Bell Laboratories, standsout. Dr. Kelly, who died in 1971, playeda major role in making Bell Labs theoutstanding industrial research labora­tory it is today.

Kelly joined Western Electric Co. in1918 as a research physicist and heretired in 1959, having served as chair­man of the board of Bell TelephoneLaboratories. A Bell executive support­ing Dr. Kelly's nomination for theAmerican Institute of Electrical Engi­neers' first Mervin J. Kelly Award in1960,called him "the foremost scientificadministrator in the country, or for thatmatter anywhere in the world."

Among the congratulations thatpoured in after the award was one fromPresident John F. Kennedy, citingKelly's leadership of the laboratoriesand his "many Washington assignmentsthat have resulted in major contribu­tions to the defense effort."

'In 1959 Kelly had joined the ranks ofAlexander Graham Bell, Thomas A.

Michael F. WolffContributing Editor

IEEEspectrum DECEMBER1983

Edison, Guglielmo Marconi, GeorgeWestinghouse, Orville Wright, CharlesKettering, Elmer Sperry, HerbertHoover, and other greats as a recipientof the John Fritz Medal for "hisachievements in electronics, leadershipof a great industrial research laboratory,and contributions to the defense of thecountry through science and technol­ogy." The award, established in 1902,was sponsored jointly by the AmericanInstitute of Electrical Engineers, theAmerican Society of Civil Engineers, theAmerican Society of Mechanical Engi­neers, and the American Institute of Min­ing, Metallurgical and PetroleumEngineers.

From cowherding to BellMany other honors came to this

bespectacled, rugged-faced scientist-

Mervin J. Kelly, as president of BellLaboratories in 1956: "The foremostscientific administrator in the world. JJ

0018-9235/83/1200-0071$I.()O@ 1983 IEEE

executive, who was born in 1894 inPrinceton, Mo. Though his father,Joseph Fenimore Kelly, was the high­school principal in the small town, theKellyslived modestly, and Mervin begansupporting himself at the age of nine byherding cows and delivering papers. Itwas not long before other boys wereworking for him. At 16 he graduatedfrom high school as class valedictorianand enrolled in the Missouri School ofMines and Metallurgy, paying his rent bylabeling mineral specimens.

Young Kellysoon decided mining wasnot for him, and he began concentratingon physics and mathematics. Aftergraduation in 1914,a two-year teachingstint at the University of Kentucky inLexington paid for his M.S. degreethere. Then he and his bride, Katherine,went to the University of Chicago,where, an as assistant to ProfessorRobert Millikan, the physicist, he par­ticipated in the famous "oil drop" ex­periments to measure electron charge.

Kellyreceiveda Ph.D. in physics fromthe University of Chicago in 1918 andjoined the Western Electric engineeringdepartment in New York at $2100a year.His recruiter was Frank B. Jewett, aformer Millikan student who became thefirst president of Bell TelephoneLaboratories upon its establishment in1925at the company's New York water­front building.

Kelly was a member of a smallresearch group that was the forerunnerof the BellTelephone Laboratories. Oneof his first projects was to make thethen-new vacuum tube commerciallyviable. Under his direction, the life oftelephone repeaters was greatly in­creased, and one of his greatest thrillscame when his team developed the firstreliable water-cooled tubes. The tubes'more than 100 kilowatts of power en­sured the success of transoceanicradiotelephony.

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Dr. Kelly(right) withhis "council" in 1955. An administrator witha Ph.D. inphysics,the BellLaboratories president was a strongproponentofbasic research.

Between 1922 and 1932, Kelly ob­tained seven patents, and his technicalactivity broadened steadily. In an inter­view some years after his death, Mrs.Kelly recalled that her husband wastotally absorbed in his work, constantlytalking about it and sometimes workinguntil midnight with his staff. He con­tinually turned down offers to go else­where for more money.

"He wouldn't have left that labora­tory for anything, no matter what any­body offered him," Mrs. Kellysaid. "Itwas just his whole life."

Hard-driving but fairIt is perhaps not surprising that after

proving himself in various supervisoryposts, Kelly was appointed director ofresearch in 1936. He is remembered as ahard-driving manager with considerableintelligence and a phenomenal memory.He is also remembered for his fairnessand concern for subordinates, as well asfor a fiery temper that was triggered byimpatience with anything he perceivedas slackness.

John R. Pierce, whom Kelly hired in1936 and who helped develop the firstcommunications satellite, saw him as"an almost supernatural force."William 0 . Baker, who retired recentlyas chairman of the board of Bell Labor",atories, described him as "a person oflimited patience, for he often regarded

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patience as an obstacle to action, towhich he was forever committed."

To Thornton Fry, Kelly's assistantfrom 1947 to 1956,Kellywas "a little bitof a bulldog" who listened well, knewhow to delegate authority, and wasgifted with technical foresight. The lat­ter permitted him to support the wave­glide-transmissionexperimentsof GeorgeC. Southworth in the early 19305, whenattempts to send signals down metalpipes 1 foot in diameter looked like avery esoteric thing to be doing.

"Kelly had very good judgment indeciding whichthings people were work­ing on were boondoggles and whichwere fundamental," Dr. Fry said.

Kelly stories abound. Dr. Fry notedKelly's "enormous self-control" by re­counting how the inveterate chain­smoker periodically quit for severalweeks just to prove he was able to. Afavorite story concerns Kelly's habit oflistening at meetings with his eyesclosed."Some of my compatriots got trappedby that," recalled Kenneth McKay, aretired executive vice president whoworked with Kelly in the late 19505.

But Kelly's essence as an industrial­research manager is perhaps mostthoroughly captured by Dr. Pierce in abiographical memoir published fouryears after Kelly's death: "He recog­nized and inspired good men and goodwork. He assessed and drove to comple-

tion important technical potentialitiesand opportunities. H~ shaped and man­aged a complex organization. "

Kelly and the transistorEarly in his term as research director,

Kelly became convinced that too muchof Bell's progress in exploring newmaterials had come about through em­piricism. He once cited an exampleunderlying this feeling: "In the BellSystem, we used only the copper from aparticular mine for fabricating copperoxide telecommunication varistors. Itmade the best. We did not know why.Processing of selenium rectifiers waslargely an art-c-cookbookery,'

Kelly was determined to shift Bellresearch toward more fundamentalareas. Crucial to this redirection was hiswillingnessto hire theoretical physicists,who at the time were generally con­sidered more at home in universitiesthan industrial laboratories. Thus it wasthat in 1936he hired William Shockley, anew Ph.D. in solid-state physics fromthe Massachusetts Institute of Tech­nology in Cambridge, to work in hisformer vacuum-tube laboratory. Yearslater Dr. Shockley recalled that a fewmonths after he started, "Kelly gave mean eloquent pep talk-one that had along-lasting influence on my ownmotivations.' ,

"He pointed out that relays in tele-

IEEEspectrum DECEMBER1983

phone exchanges caused problems andwere expensive to maintain," Shockleynoted. "He felt that electronics shouldcontribute to telephone exchanges, inaddition to making long-distancetransmission possible."

in a 1956 Nobel Prize acceptancespeech, Shockley said that "Dr. Kelly'sdiscussion left me continually alert forpossible applications of solid..state ef­fects in telephone-switching problems."

Such interests had to be put aside dur­ing World War II, however. In the war­years, Kelly was responsible for all ofBell's 1200 military programs, beingpromotedto executive vicepresident ofthe laboratory in 1944.

During the last months of the war,Kelly restarted the organizationalmachinery that soon led to the inventionof the transistor. He invited Shockleyback from his wartime Pentagon assign­ment and, as Shockley recollected, re­awakened his interest in semiconductoramplifiers by demonstrating a radio setwithout vacuum tubes; point-contactdetectors did the rectifying. Then Kellycarried out a sweeping reorganization ofBell's physics department.

The assault on solid state"Nobody resisted Kelly," said James

B. Fisk before his death in 1981. Dr.

Fisk, aii rY1IT classmateof Dr. Shockley,was hired by Kellyin 1939and succeededhim as president of Bell Laboratoriesfrom 1959 to 1973. (Kelly served aspresident from 1941 to 1959.)

"If Kelly felt something was right,"Dr. Fisk said, "he would just go 'slambang.' "

Kelly made Fisk assistant director ofphysical research, and he authorized abroad attack on allaspectsof solid state,from the underlying quantum mechani­cal theory to the preparation of materi­als. Three groups were formed: physicalelectronics, electron dynamics, andsolid-state physics under Shockley andStanley O. Morgan. The latter group setup its soon-to-be-famous semiconductorsubgroup, with members who includedWalter Brattain, at Bell Laboratoriessince 1929. and an experimentalphysicist, Gerald Pearson.

In an interview five years before hisdeath, Fisk singled out two consciousdecisions as basic to the ultimate successof the program: the setting up of a teamthat covered a whole spectrum ofdisciplines-metallurgy, chemistry,physics, and so on-and the hiring ofthe strongest theoretical people whocould be found. The latter decision ledto the hiring of John Bardeen, whosesubsequent theory of surface states con-

tributed 80 importantly to the inventionby himand Brattain ofthe point-contacttransistor in December 1947.Soon after­ward, Shockley invented his junctiontransistor, and the age of semiconductorelectronics was born.

In 1972, at Bell Laboratories' 25th­anniversary celebration of the transistor,Shockley praised "the managerial skillsthat created the atmosphere of innova­tion at Bell Labs." He said they wereessential to creating the transistor and tocontributing the many benefits it hasbrought to society.

Kelly was very much a part of thismanagerial skill. He posed the initialchallenge that led ultimately to the tran­sistor, and he helped to get the ap­propriate people in place to meet thechallenge. In addition, he followed thetechnical work closely. Although he didnot attempt to contribute technicallyafter becoming executive vice presidentin 1944, he continued to participate inperiodic reviews of the technical work inthe various departments, following thediscussions closely and asking penetrat­ing questions. He was also diligent inreading the technical memoranda thatBell researchers generated wheneverthey felt they had done somethingsignificant. Dr. Pierce recalled, "Hedidn't meddle, but he made knowledge-

Dr. Kelly(secondfrom right) observes a 1948 testof the then-longestwaveguide in history. made of j ..inchcopper pipe, at Holmdel, N.J.

Wolff-Mervin J. Kelly: manager and motivator 73

clear view of how it ought to be carriedout within the Bell System. He fullyunderstood, as had Dr. Jewett and othersenior AT&T executives, the importanceof basic research in industry, and he con­tinually stressed the need for scientists toconfine their efforts to that research. Ashe told the British Royal Society in 1950,"If they extend the area of their efforteven to that of fundamental develop­ment [the area of work that immediatelyfollows research], they tend to lose con­tact with the forefront of their field ofscientific interest. In. time, a con­siderable fraction will lose their produc­tivity in research."

But perhaps even more significant,Kelly also understood, in his own words,the "most important chain of eventsthat lies between the initial step of basicresearch and the terminal operation ofmanufacture." Kelly saw these events asa single entity, which he called "orga­nized creative technology."

Within this entity there must be an"intimate tie" between research andfundamental development, as wasdemonstrated so brilliantly in the solid­state effort. There is also, Kelly agreed, aseparate but vital place for systemsengineering, which, he said, "controlsand guiccs the use of the new knowledgeobtained from the research and develop­ment programs."

Finally, Kelly believed a research

The art of industrial researchAn industrial research director must

lead scientists and engineers to tech­nological achievements that will payofffor the corporation. This requires thathe hire the right people, set long-rangeresearch goals, and-c-somehow-e-inspirehis people to reach enough of the goalsto retain the confidence and support oftop management. He must insulatecreative professionals from theorganization's bean counters andnaysayers, while keeping them focusedon the organization's goals. Kelly seemsto have been one of the relatively fewresearch directors who could performthese feats.

"Every place needs a fireball or sparkplug, and he was it," said AT&T'sformer board chairrnan, Frederick R.Kappel, after Kelly's death. More thanthat, however, Kelly had a definitephilosophy of industrial research and a

Kelly told him not to stop there but toget going on other things. Baker tookthe warning seriously and began en­couraging work in photonics and com­puter software, which subsequentlybecame major research fields in theirown right. Dr. Baker said recently, "Wecould easily have been confined, or atleast anesthetized, by the tremendousrevolution in solid state. But Kellywould not allow it."

~ ;;;~ii;~r uf 'hI; ieuf!'. i;tui' ueveluped the iirstreliabable water-cooled vacuumtube; Dr.. Kelly(right) examines an audion tube with Lee deForest in a 1956 visit to the New York City sitewhere de Forest inventedthe tube in 1906. -

A persuasive recruiterKelly met Mr. Morton in 1936 on a

recruiting trip to the University ofMichigan, Ann Arbor, where Mortonwas a first-year graduate student in elec­trical engineering, whose A + averageguaranteed him his school's topfellowship. Morton had no interest intaking an industry job, and he told Kellyso. But Kelly talked to him again. Thenext morning Morton gave up thefellowship and went East, without in­quiring about the salary, which turnedout to be slightly less than the fellowshipoffered.

During the next decade, Morton madehis reputation by conceiving of anddeveloping an important vacuum tube,the close-spaced triode. One day in 1948,Kelly called him into his office. Kellyplanned to be away for the next fourweeks, and when he returned, he wanteda report from Morton on how todevelop the tnlI,sistor commercially. Foryears afterward, Morton loved to tellhow intimidated he had been by thatcommand, but the report was on Kelly'sdesk when he returned. After reading it,Kelly put Morton in charge ofimplementing the plan.

A postscript to the transistor story isparticularly revealing about Kelly. A fewyears before retiring in 195j, he calledthe vice president of research, WilliamBaker, into his office. Urging Dr. Bakernot to become complacent over thesemiconductor revolution that Kelly andother Bell Telephone Laboratories peo­ple had done so much to bring about,

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ceeded, Kellywould be briefed personal­ly. For example, Dr. Bardeen remembersKelly attending the milestonedemonstration of the fact that holescould move as positive charges down agermanium slab. And he and other topexecutives were quick to visit Dr. Brat­tain's laboratory for a demonstration ofthe point-contact transistor.

That latter demonstration excited Kel­ly tremendously, and Dr. Bardeencredits him with setting about speedily tofind other Bell researchers who couldimprove on the crude laboratory device.Kelly knew he had to find the right per­son to take the device out of thelaboratory and into production. Heknew that person because he hadrecruited him, too. His name was JackMorton.

74 IEEEspectrumDECEMBER1983

scientists are freed from nonresearchsupervisory activities, including budget­ing. In a 1955 address to the AmericanChemical Society's annual meeting, heexplained that for the past 15 years all .nontechnical support activities had beenlocated within the organization of thevice president and general manager "asnearly 100 percent as possible." Beforethis was done, he continued, "thetechnical diretors and leaders, throughthe resulting diversion of attention fromtheir technical areas.were less effective ina day-to-day sense, and, in the longterm, their professional drive, en­thusiasm, dedication, and competencein science and technology were adverselyaffected to different degrees. In this, asin all other matters, the laboratories'

the scientific and technical competenceand enthusiasm of the professionalstaff."

He went on to stress that "the dif­ference between the output of a brilliantscientist or engineer and an average oneis so large that constant effort is madeto increase the percentage of the bril­liant ..... However, the acquisition ofmen of highest quality will not establishand maintain high productivity unlessthere is an atmosphere and environmentin the laboratories that make for thehigh morale so essential to the vitalityand verve accompanying any successfulcreative effort. High morale is evenmore essential in research and develop­ment, where creative men, primarily in­dividualists, must work intimately ingroups if high productivity is to berealized. "

Kelly's preferred form for an organi­zation evolved under his leadership andmade BellTelephone Laboratories into anational resource during and afterWorid War Il.

Vital advances in radar and other mil­itary areas were produced. In common­carrier communication, Dr. Pierceobserved, "Kelly fostered or launchedambitious programs in nationwide dial­ing, in automation of maintenance andtesting, in microwave communications,in coaxial-cable transmission, in trans-

) oceanic cables, and in electronic switch­ing. All were timely, and, in the end, allwere successful."

'Kelly College': school for prosThere was more. All accounts of Kel­

ly's contributions stress both his role in

Wolff-Mervin J. Kelly: manager and motivator

development work at Western Electric'smanufacturingplants and his setting upof the famed "Kelly College."

When Kelly established the firstbranch laboratory at Allentown, Pa., in1947,he wasforging the kind of link be­tween research and manufacturing thateludes many companies to this day. Andin 1948, when he started a communica­tions development training programwithin Bell Telephone Laboratories­the so-called Kelly College-he waspioneering in-house education as ameans of keeping engineers and scien­tists from becoming technically ob­solete. Kelly, who interviewed manyPh.D. employment candidates himself,even as executive vice president, hireduniversity experts to help teach ad-.'Oin,...ol'l ""1111.~~~ :... ....I.......:~,.. ~1..~.......:_._."''-4&&~''''_ ...."U&,;,.... ,;, £II pU~.,l""." ""l1~I1U~l.1y,

mathematics, and communications andelectronics technology in what Dr.Baker has described as "the largestgraduate school of electrical engineeringover operated."

As the years pass and both AT&T andthe world change, it becomes increasing­ly difficult to point to anyone aspect ofBell Labs and credit it solely to MervinKelly. So in the end perhaps the besttestament to this remarkable technicalleader must come from the personalrecollections of those who worked withhim.

Harold S. Black, who worked in Kel­ly's vacuum-tube shop before going onto conceive the negative-feedbackamplifier in 1927, recalled how Kellynever liked to hurt anyone's feelings. Hewas so distressed one time at the pros­pect of having to force the transfer of apersistent loafer that he asked Dr. Blackwhat he should do about the man.Another time, Dr. Black said, Kelly per­sonally saw to it that special efforts weremade to find useful jobs for an injuredemployee.

Dr. McKay, the former Bellexecutivevice president, remembered stepping in­to Kelly's hospital room for a brief visita few weeks before his death at the ageof 77. (Since retiring in 1959, Kelly hadbeen a consultant to a number of com­panies, principally to IBM Corp.)

"He was just out of intensive care,"Dr. McKay related, "and promptly, inhis own very vigorous way, complainedbitterly about the fact that the doctorswere going to keep him in the hospitalfor some time and that they didn't ap­preciate how badly they were interfering

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WILli Ul~ ~""'i;UU1\;. U .. WCJZj '4iPl\';~ UiCli.. neshould be so intensely involved with theconsulting work he was doing that hewould have complete disdain for thedoctors. He was a most extraordinaryindividual."

To probe furtherJohn R. Pierce's profile of Mervin J.

Kelly can be found in BiographicalMemoirs, Vol. 46, National Academy ofSciences, pp, 191-213. In addition, Kel­ly's address to the London Royal Socie­ty, "The Bell Telephone Laborator­ies-An Example of an Institute ofCreative Technology," is in the Pro­ceedings of the Royal Society, A, Vol.203, 1950, pp. 287-301.

The invention of the transistor hasbeen reported in many forums. Amongthose that include Kelly's role are the1956Nobel Prize acceptance speeches ofBell Laboratories' Walter Brattain,John Bardeen, and William Shockley, inNobel Lectures in Physics 1942-1962,Nobel Foundation, Elsevier, 1964;Shockley's "The Example of 'Creative­Failure' Methodology," in The PublicNeed and the Role ofthe Inventor, Na­tional Bureau of Standards SpecialPublication 388, May 1974, pp. 47-88;and in Charles Weiner's "How the tran­sistor emerged," IEEE Spectrum,January 1973, pp. 24-33.

Jack Morton had much to say aboutKelly and about the interrelationship ofresearch, development, and manufac­turing that Kelly considered so impor­tant in "From research to technology,"International Science and Technology,May 1964, PP. 82-92, and in his book,Organizing for Innovation, McGraw­Hill Book ce., 1971.

A History ofEngineering and Sciencein the Bell System, published by AT&TBell Laboratories, contains some 3000pages of BP.ll Laboratories history, in­cluding a number of references to Kellyand his role at various periods in Bell'shistory. The fourth volume in this series,PhysicalSciences, is due out this monthand includes reminiscences of the genesisof the transistor written expressly forthis history by Nobel laureate WalterBrattain. •

The author wishes to acknowledge par­ticularly the valuable assistance of D.M. LaPorte of Bell Laboratories and Spencer Weartof the Center for the History of Physics of theAmerican Institute of Physics, New York, inmaking available oral history interviews andother archival materlc: cr. i\,~ervln J. Ke!ly andBeil Labs.

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