Morris Richard Jeppson was born in Logan, Utah, June 23, 1922. Loved by all, and having had a life rich in family, travel and love, he passed away peacefully March 30, 2010, at Summerlin Hospital.
"Dick" served in the military from 1943 to 1946. He attended Air Force electronics/radar schools at Yale, Harvard and MIT, after which he was assigned to Los Alamos, where he worked on the development/field testing of the first atomic bombs. He was a member of the 509th Composite Group and was the weapons test officer on the Enola Gay flight that dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Following this historic event, Dick went on to have a successful career working in electronics and applied radiation at University of California Radiation Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory; and he founded several companies, including Applied Radiation Corporation and Cryodry Corporation. He was the director of the Optical Research and Development Corporation and the director of Humphrey Instruments. He authored numerous patents on industrial microwave equipment/processes and energy/resource systems. Dick had a brilliant mind to the end and over his lifetime he developed many inventions that were well ahead of their time.
He is survived by his wife, Molly Ann (Hussey) Jeppson; brother, Lawrence Jeppson of Salt Lake City; daughters, Nancy Hoskins of Colorado Springs, Colo., Carol English of Medford, Ore., Sally Jeppson of Gackle, N.D., and Jane Ross of Midland, Ontario; sons, Mike Sullivan of Pahrump, and John Sullivan of Lakeport, Calif.; 11 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.
Dick enjoyed travel, reading, research, good food, bridge and gardening. He was a devoted husband and loving father.