Wouk, Victor, 1919-2005

Biography

Victor Wouk was born in the South Bronx, in New York City, in 1919. After completing elementary school, he entered Townsend Harris High School—described by Wouk as "unequivocally elitist"—from which he gained a strong interest in science and mathematics. This interest continued upon entering Columbia University in 1935, though in his junior year, after becoming fascinated by the new medium of television, he decided to specialize in electrical engineering. Receiving his bachelor's degree from Columbia (1939), Wouk then traveled to the West Coast, and specifically the California Institute of Technology for his master's (1940) and doctoral degrees (1942). There, with its new state-of-the-art high voltage laboratory, Wouk's interest in and skill at electrical engineering blossomed.

After completing his PhD Wouk went to work at the Westingthouse Research Laboratories, where, because of his expertise in high voltage and power, he was put to work on the ionic centrifuge in order to separate Uranium 235 for the Manhattan District Project. Following the war he returned to his "first love," television, working with North American Philips in New York to develop a 25,000 volt power supply for operating their projection tube. Seeing an opportunity in the industry, Wouk then formed his own company, Beta Electric, in the early 1950s that was soon doing $1 million in sales producing high powered test equipment. Bought out by Sorenson and Company in 1956, Wouk then became Sorenson's chief engineer of their power supply section and worked on such projects as high power semiconductors. Eager to develop even more sophisticated equipment, Wouk formed the Electronic Energy Conversion Corporation in 1959. With their light weight, low volume and high intensity, his power conditioning units became sought after in the computer industry and in military aviation.

Such was Wouk's reputation in electricity that Russell Feldman, a founder of Motorola, approached Wouk with a query concerning the feasibility of building a viable electronic vehicle for the commercial market. Wouk was able to improve the performance of the prototype, but—after consulting with Linus Pauling and others at Caltech—determined that without a radically better battery the best way forward would be to develop a hybrid electric vehicle. The timing of these events was coincident with new studies about the detrimental effects of smog and, in 1968, new emissions legislation. With the Federal Clean Car Incentive Program in the early 1970s the government sponsored Wouk's attempt—under the corporate name of Petro-Electric Motors—to develop a hybrid vehicle. Choosing to use a modified Buick Skylark, he and Charles Rosen constructed a parallel-type electric motor that ran in concert with a Mazda RX2 rotary engine.

Although Petro-Electric Motors managed to fabricate a low polluting vehicle with twice the fuel economy, various bureaucratic and technical issues, as well as political pressures, stymied their project. Not until the advent of the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight did the hybrid vehicle become a marketable commodity. (Nevertheless, Wouk satisfyingly proclaimed, "On the electric vehicle thing I'm very proud that I made a pain in the ass of myself for the last twenty years now about the hybrid."). For this reason Wouk returned to consulting in 1976, working on electric and hybrid vehicles for the Department of Energy, Tennessee Valley Authority, Booz-Allen, and NASA-Lewis amongst others. He also designed the electric bus system was the representative of the United to the International Electrotechnical Commission committee on electric and hybrid vehicles (IEC TC 69).

Other interests—businesses and otherwise— consumed Victor's time. One such is "Wouka Industries," a seafood import business created by his father and for which Victor became president. As well as managing the daily affairs of the company, Wouk worked out a number of ingenious methods to streamline the various processes. He also applied for and received many patents, including a chopper-dropper-booster circuit and an incandescent lamp life extender. His extensive correspondence with his famous brother Herman reveals a host of other concerns, ranging from literature and philately, to space travel and the state of Jewish intellectual life.

During his career Wouk was an inexhaustible communicator. He published over one hundred articles and has given nearly 150 talks to expert and lay audiences. His correspondence is vast and his "letters to the editor" innumerable. The latter also evince the diversity of interests. Despite the gargantuan amount of energy that Wouk put into the development of electric and hybrid vehicles, the range of his activities in both professional and "private" life has remained extraordinarily large. Much of this diversity has been by way of the societies to which Wouk has belonged: among the organizations in which Wouk has actively participated is the New York Academy of Sciences, the American Institute for the Advancement of Science, the Society of Automotive Engineers and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). As an alumnus and Associate, he remains energetically involved in all sorts of issues relating to the California Institute of Technology.

Except for his years at Caltech, Victor spent most of his life in New York's environs, residing with his wife, Joy, in an apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan. He died at the age of 86 on May 19, 2005.

From the guide to the Victor Wouk Papers, 1934-2004, (California Institute of Technology. Caltech Archives)