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Rothrock, Addison M.: 6/24/1971

Dr. Addison M. Rothrock
 
Word has been received here of the death June 24 of Dr. Addison M. Rothrock, a West Chester High School graduate with many ties to Chester county. He was 68.
 
Retired associate director of plans and programs for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, he died at Circle Terrace Hospital, Alexandria, Va., after a heart attack. He was a son of the late Dr. and Mrs. Harry A. Rothrock.
 
Dr. Rothrock was credited with contributing to significant advances in technology for aircraft and rocket engines during his 45 years as a propulsion research scientist and administrator.
 
After his 1921 graduation from West Chester, he went to Penn State University and in 1926, joined the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, NASA's predecessor.
 
After retiring in 1963, Dr. Rothrock became a professor of applied science for five years at George Washington University. He served on many high-level advisory committees and was a member of several scientific societies.
 

Rothrock, John William: 10/07/2006

John William Rothrock, 86, of West Chester, PA and Watchung, NJ, died Saturday after a long illness. Born in the family farmhouse in 1920 in Bangor, PA, Mr. Rothrock was the fourth of five sons of John R. and Clara May (Leh) Rothrock. He attended Bangor High School and was the first in his family to go on to college, earning a B.S. in Chemistry from Penn State in 1941.
 
During World War II, Mr. Rothrock served as an aerial navigator in the U.S. Army Air Corps; he was discharged in 1946 as a 2nd Lieutenant. After the war, while still stationed at Chanute Field in Rantoul, Illinois, he met Goldie “Liz” Swango. They married in August of 1946. Shortly thereafter, he entered the University of Illinois as a graduate student in biochemistry.
 
Upon completing his Ph.D. in 1949, Mr. Rothrock accepted a position as a research chemist at Merck & Co. and relocated to New Jersey. Over the course of the next 37 years, his research would help shape some of the firm’s most important drugs, including Mevacor and Vasotec. He retired in 1986, having spent his entire career with Merck.
 

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