Hall of Honor
Walt cemented his name in SCIAC and Caltech history after collecting two conference titles in the pole vault and setting a school record in the process. His consistent high-level pole-vaulting skills played a major role in the team's successes across the 1949 and 1950 campaigns; in 1950, he helped lead the Beavers to dual meet wins against all other schools in the SCIAC (Occidental, Pomona, Whittier and Redlands).
His school-record-clearing height of 13 feet, 4 ¾ inches topped the previous school record set 24 years earlier by Olympic silver medalist and fellow Hall of Honor inductee Glenn Graham '26; Walt's record stood for 17 years.
Walt served as Proxy of the Varsity Club and Vice President of Tau Beta Pi, the oldest engineering honor society and second-oldest collegiate honor society in the United States. He graduated in physics with honors from the Institute in 1950.
The outstanding student-athlete went on to earn a PhD in nuclear physics from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1953 before moving to New Mexico, where he spent three years working for the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory. From 1956 to 1992, he worked for Lockheed Missiles & Space in Palo Alto, where he conducted research and served in managerial roles. Specifically, the brilliant academic specialized in atmospheric and plasma physics, trapped radiation and space science.
Walt later became a Consulting Professor of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University where he continued his research while teaching courses. He passed away in 2021.
