Campbell M. Wade

Campbell (Cam) Marion Wade was born in 1930 in Elizabeth Town, Kentucky and died in 2024 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He received both his undergraduate and graduate education at Harvard University where he helped to develop the burgeoning radio astronomy program led by Bart Bok and Doc Ewen. His undergraduate studies were interrupted, however, by two years in the 452nd Army Field Artillery Battalion.

After completing his PhD dissertation on A 21-cm study of Expanding H II Regions, Cam spent two years on a postdoctoral appointment at the Australian Scientific and Industrial Research Organization Radiophysics Laboratory. While at CSIRO, he used data from the 85 MHz Mills Cross to demonstrate for the first time the double lobe structure of the large extended feature of the radio galaxy Centaurus A (NGC 5128).

In 1960 Cam joined the NRAO scientific staff in Green Bank as an Assistant Scientist where made an immediate impact. Using the then new Tatel 85 foot radio telescope, he was the first to note the presence of a second radio galaxy, M84, in the Virgo Cluster and then showed the double nature of the radio galaxy Fornax A (NGC 1316), thus demonstrating the ubiquity of double lobed radio galaxies. Teaming up with NRAO Director Dave Heeschen, Cam used the new 300 foot radio telescope to study the radio emission from 88 bright galaxies in the Shapley-Ames catalogue. Again, using the 300 foot telescope, together with Heeschen and Ivan Pauliny-Toth, their catalogue of accurate positions and flux densities for radio sources found in the Cambridge 3CR catalogue became a standard reference for years.

Using the Green Bank Interferometer Cam discovered the fine structure in Cygnus A, and together with Barry Clark and Dave Hogg, he did precision absolute astrometry on compact radio sources leading to the identification of new quasars. Mostly working with Bob Hjellming, Cam made the first detections of true radio stars, and together with Hjellming and the present author discovered the compact radio component coincident with the nucleus of NGC 5128.

Cam played a major role in the development of the Green Bank interferometer, then took the lead in the early planning of the VLA. He led the study of 34 potential sites for the VLA (using his prized Finnish surveyor's compass), and later evaluated the siting of the ten VLBA antennas.

In 1966 Cam moved to the new NRAO headquarters in Charlottesville, Virginia, and in 1978, he moved to Socorro where he could take a more direct role in commissioning the VLA; when the VLA was nearly completed, in December 1978, Cam became the first director of VLA operations. After he retired from NRAO in 1993, Cam moved to Albuquerque.

Cam was a member of the American Astronomical Society and the International Astronomical Union.

I first met Cam when he visited Caltech near the end of my PhD studies in late 1962, and he became my mentor when I first arrived in Green Bank in the summer of 1965 after completing my two year postdoctoral appointment at the CSIRO Radiophysics Lab. He often reminded me of our parallel professional and personal careers. One of my first assigned tasks in Green Bank was to assist Cam in surveying the surface of the new Green Bank 140 foot radio telescope. We spent many hours together in the 140 foot dish during the long cold nights feeling like we were in equilibrium with the 3 degree cosmic background radiation which had just been announced that summer.

Cam was proud of his heritage growing up on a Kentucky farm, which served him well in dealing with the New Mexico ranchers during negotiations to build the VLA on the Plains of San Augustin, and he enjoyed telling stories about himself. Once, when working through the list of several potential southwestern VLA sites, he found that one of them was on Native American land in Arizona not far from Kitt Peak. As part of his evaluation of this potential site Cam arranged to meet with a tribal elder. At one point Cam asked if the site was considered sacred. In answer, the elder smiled and said "Not yet!"

Cam also was fond of recalling his two week trip to Australia on a luxurious ocean liner. As per CSIRO policy, Cam and his wife traveled first class. As was the tradition of the time, first class passengers would often gather for evening dinner in full formal attire, but Cam lamented that he didn't even own a suit.

Perhaps the best known Cam Wade story was about one of his VLA site survey trips. He had just purchased a new altimeter, and as his airplane flight took off, Cam had just taken out his altimeter to see how it would respond as the airplane gained altitude, when suddenly the plane banked in a sharp turn, and Captain announced over the intercom that they were returning to the airport. Apparently he forgot to turn off his microphone so the passengers also heard the Captain tell the co-pilot, "Well, one way or another, in a few minutes we will be on the ground." Like the other passengers, Cam had no idea what was happening, but when after landing, along with other passengers, he hastily exited the plane using the emergency slide, he was immediately met on the ground by security people who led him away for questioning. Apparently, a fellow passenger had thought Cam was arming a bomb, and reported it to the flight attendant who notified the Captain, who in turn alerted ground security.

We will remember Cam for his adventurous spirit, his devotion to astronomy and to his invaluable contributions to NRAO's radio telescope facilities.