Dr. Richard C. Honey made numerous fundamental technical contributions in his career at SRI, which began in 1952. He is an internationally known scientist of great integrity and creativity. His achievements have contributed greatly to SRI's reputation, mainly in antenna design and laser applications. Working with Dr. Ted Jones, Dick developed and patented the first wide-band omnidirectional antenna for direction finding applications. This Honey-Jones antenna is still used today in signal-intelligence applications. Later, the Honey array became the first leaky-wave antenna for practical applications.
In the early 1960s, Dick's interests turned to the new laser technology and how lasers could be applied to solve problems important to society. The first useful development was LIDAR, that is, light radar. Dick's work built a strong reputation for SRI in exploration of the upper atmospheric and in oceanic applications of laser technology. He has always been known for strong theoretical skills, but was noted particularly for his hands-on approach. When it came time for someone to do the deep dive to verify some undersea experiment, Dick was always the first to volunteer. Many of his contributions cannot be discussed in detail, even today, owing to national security implications.
In the late 1960s, Dr. Honey began to apply his knowledge to biomedical applications of the new laser. With a group of ophthalmologists from Stanford University and the Palo Alto Clinic, Dick and his people examined the use of the laser in retinal surgery. Using monkeys as test subjects, Dick and his lab developed the first standards for laser retinal exposure. He served on the first American National Standards Institute (ANSI) committee for establishing eye protection standards. When Dick's boss, SRI VP Don Scheuch, suffered a detached retina in a tennis accident, Don Scheuch became one of the first to benefit from this procedure.
For the past 40 years, Dick Honey has been considered one of the finest professionals at SRI. He is a very kind and gentle contributor, and we all enjoyed working with him and learning from him.