Erwin Wuester, 1930-2010
Jul
31
Saturday, July 31, 2010
By JAY LEVIN STAFF WRITER North Jersey Media Group
Publication: Herald News (Passaic County, NJ)
Date: Thursday, May 13 2010
Mr. Wuester began his career with the Linen Thread Co. in Paterson and retired in 2003 as senior textile technologist at the Army's Natick Research, Development and Engineering Center in Massachusetts. Among his achievements at Natick was the development of a fluorocarbon finish that greatly improved the durability of parachute static lines and canopy fabrics.
"Erwin is still the only person with both textile manufacturing experience and the parachute design experience you gain from working for the Army," said Edward Doucette, acting director of the Natick installation and formerly its director of aerial delivery.
"He was the premier expert on the design of military parachutes."
Mr. Wuester also helped develop drogue parachutes for NASA's space shuttle.
An article in Aerial Delivery Magazine noted that Mr. Wuester had been a member of a parachute accident investigation team and testified in criminal investigations involving parachute failure.
Mr. Wuester brought a military background to his job at Natick. He spent 35 years in the Air Force as an active-duty officer and a reservist, retiring with the rank of lieutenant colonel. A navigator, he never parachuted during his decades in the Air Force and in parachute design, Doucette said.
Mr. Wuester graduated from Pompton Lakes High School and received a degree in chemical engineering from Lafayette College in Pennsylvania and a degree in textile manufacturing from the Lowell Textile Institute in Massachusetts. The textile business was in his blood ? his father was a weaver at Paragon Woven Labels, a Wuester family company in Haskell, said Mr. Wuester's sister, Ann McGuire.
Mr. Wuester, a former resident of Pompton Lakes, worked for Coats & Clark in New York and Malden Mills in Lawrence, Mass., before joining the Natick Research, Development and Engineering Center in 1982.
He is survived by his wife of 41 years, Arlene; a daughter, Karen Theusen of Ferndale, Wash.; stepsons Charles Gordon of Chelmsford, Mass., and Douglas Gordon of Clermont, Fla.; two sisters, Ann McGuire of East Hanover and Evelyn Dingle of Riverdale; four grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
The funeral will be Friday at 10 a.m. at Morse-Bayliss Funeral Home in Lowell. Mr. Wuester will be interred with full military honors in Edson Cemetery in Lowell.