Willard Anderson, of Maplewood, Minnesota, and a Distinguished Alumnus who worked on a wide variety of projects with Honeywell engineering, died Dec. 27, 2017, at age 84.
Anderson, who was honored by the South Dakota State University Alumni Association in 1983, took master’s degree courses in mathematics and physics in 1959 while also teaching mathematics. His bachelor’s degree was from Huron College in 1955.
Anderson was a principal development engineer for Honeywell at the time he was honored. He worked with antireflective coating, encapsulation, module design and module manufacturing in an exploratory program to produce photovoltaic solar cells using silicon-on-ceramic technology. A prior photovoltaic prototype hardware was tested at Sandia National Laboratory.
Anderson also did work in electro-optics, gyroscopes and held a patent for a refractive index densitometer, which was used in optics.
Outside the lab, Anderson was interested in civic affairs, serving as president of a community club and as a member of the Lauderdale, Minnesota, City Council. He was mayor of Lauderdale in August 1988-1991. He also was active in several automobile clubs, was editor and publisher of a small local newspaper and was a party precinct chairman.
Survivors include his wife, Mary Hebert; two brothers, Glenn and Danial; and a sister, Laura Underwood.
He was preceded in death by his first wife, Frances. They met at State while she was teaching mathematics while earning her bachelor’s degree.
