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This is the 26th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries ...
This is the 26th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.
Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and international members, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.
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BY ARUN PHADKE
STANLEY HAROLD HOROWITZ was born August 5, 1925, to Abraham and Anna Horowitz in Brooklyn, New York. He passed away November 24, 2022, at the age of 97 after a prolonged decline in health. A giant in the field of power system relaying, he invented many protection principles that are taken for granted today.
Stan received his BS in electrical engineering in 1949 from the City College of the City University of New York. He went to work at American Electric Power Service Corp. (then American Gas and Electric) in 1950 and retired in 1989, having served as head of the System Protection Section, assistant head of the Electrical Engineering Division, and consulting electrical engineer.
I met him in 1970, on the occasion of the formation of a group in the Computer Applications Department with the responsibility to investigate computer-based relays. Until that time, the relays used for protecting the power system and its elements used analog technology, including electromechanical and electronic devices. The protection engineers trusted these devices and found them to be very satisfactory; using computers for relaying was a new idea at the time and not quite acceptable to traditionalists.
Our group of young engineers was well acquainted with computer technology but lacked a thorough knowledge of the relaying principles and practices. We approached Stan for help since he was head of the relaying department. Unlike some of his traditionalist colleagues, he immediately agreed to help our group as an advisor.
Stan foresaw that, while computer-based relays would replicate the traditional protection functions, they would also open up an entirely new phase—communication with other protective devices and control centers. They would also support wide area measurement systems that would allow completely new protection concepts. Everything he foresaw came true.
He coauthored a textbook, Power System Relaying (5th ed., Wiley, 2022); edited the IEEE Press’s Protective Relaying for Power Systems, Volumes I and II; and published over two dozen technical papers. He was editor in chief of the IEEE Power Engineering Society magazine Computer Applications in Power from 1996 to 2002.
He was a lecturer at Columbia University Graduate School and a guest lecturer at the Universities of Wisconsin, Marquette, Auburn University, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lund University (Sweden), and Grenoble University (France). In 2001 the Columbus Technical Council recognized him as the technical person of the year, and in 2004 he was honored with a University of Wisconsin Distinguished Service Award.
Stan was a life fellow of the IEEE, having been elected a fellow in 1978. He chaired the IEEE/PES Power System Relaying Committee (PSRC; 1975–78) and was a member of the Power Engineering Society (PES) Executive Board (1987–88), Life Member Committee, and PES Fellows Committee. In 1979 the PSRC recognized his active engagement with its Distinguished Service Award.
For the International Council for Large Electric Systems (CIGRE) he chaired Study Committee 34: Protection and Control (1980–86). In 1997 he was awarded the CIGRE Attwood Associates Award for notable contributions to the council and a prize paper award for “Torsional Oscillations and Fatigue of Steam Turbine-Generator Shafts caused by System Disturbances and Switching Events.”
He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 1995 and was an active member of Section 6—Electric Power/Energy Systems, including service on its peer committee (1996–99). In 2007 he was awarded the IEEE-Eta Kappa Nu Vladimir Karapetoff Outstanding Technical Achievement Award. In 2008 he won the IEEE PES Lifetime Achievement Award for “leadership in the field of power system protection with a consistently high level of innovative contributions to the art of relaying during a career spanning 50 years.”
Stan was married to Sylvia Cohen (Sibby to her friends), who passed away in March 2022. They are survived by their son Marc (married to Willa), who lives in Connecticut, where Stan spent his last days in Marc’s care.