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<p><em>William Bernard “Bill” Streett </em>was born in Lake Village, AR, the second son of Marie L. Pfeffer and William B. Streett. During the Great Depression, Bill’s father built levies along the Mississippi River and later worked in a paper mill. In 1941, the family moved to Little Rock, AR, where their circumstances improved after his mother found work as a school teacher and later became a principal. In 1947, at age 15 when he was a junior at Little Rock Central High School, Bill enlisted in the Arkansas National Guard. After graduating from high school in 1949, he studied engineering for two years at Little Rock Junior College and worked as a draftsman for a mechanical engineering firm. In 1950, Bill’s National Guard company commander recommended that he take a series of Civil Service exams and a physical exam, which led to a National Guard appointment to West Point. </p>
<p>Bill’s focus at West Point was on academics. He earned “stars” for academic excellence all four years and graduated third in his class in June 1955. During his time at Camp Buckner, following plebe year, he excelled in marksmanship, winning the Infantry Weapons Trophy for the highest composite score on all the weapons fired. He was a member of the winning squad in the Buckner Stakes Squad Competition. He participated in several sports in the intramural program and especially enjoyed and became an excellent handball player. He was a member of the Honor Committee (serving as vice president during his First Class year) and was editor of the 1955 edition of the plebe handbook, Bugle Notes. A member of his company remembered Bill as thoughtful, honest, fair-minded, humble, helpful, and friendly during their cadet years and recalled that he was held in high esteem by his contemporaries. </p>
<p>On June 8, 1955, the day following his graduation, Bill married his high school sweetheart, Jackie L. Heard, in a ceremony at West Point. They had four children—Robert, David, Kathleen, and Michael—between 1956 and 1961.</p>
<p>Bill was commissioned in the Armor branch and following graduation completed parachute training at Fort Benning, GA and the Armor Officer Basic Course at Fort Knox, KY. He then joined the 3rd Armored Division in 1956, shortly before the entire division moved to Germany, where he served as a tank platoon leader and company executive officer. In 1958, Bill transferred to the Ordnance Corps and served as a platoon leader in the 15th Ordnance Battalion. </p>
<p>Late in 1958 he accepted a teaching assignment at West Point, which included two years of graduate school at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor (1959-61). At West Point he was assigned to the new department of Earth, Space and Graphic Sciences, for which he taught astronomy and physical geography. In 1962, he returned to Ann Arbor for a year to complete his Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering. His thesis research was a NASA-sponsored project to measure the solubility of helium gas in liquid hydrogen to provide information essential to the use of liquid hydrogen as a rocket fuel. In 1965, Bill was awarded a NATO postdoctoral fellowship, which enabled him to spend 1966 at Oxford University, where he continued the work begun in his Ph.D. research. Upon his return to the U.S. in 1967, he was assigned briefly to the U.S. Army Arsenal, Watervliet, NY, before returning to the faculty at West Point as a Permanent Associate Professor. He became the first Assistant Dean for Research at West Point and founder of the Science Research Laboratory. He continued his research on gases and liquids at low temperatures and high pressures, publishing more than 120 papers in leading scientific journals. In 1974, he was awarded a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, which enabled him to spend the 1974-75 academic year at Oxford University as a visiting fellow. At Oxford, Bill developed groundbreaking computer simulations of liquids at the molecular level. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his exceptional service. </p>
<p>Bill retired from the Army with the rank of colonel in 1978 and joined the faculty of Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, as a professor of chemical engineering. As a result of his leadership training, he was quickly drawn into administration and in 1985 was appointed dean of the Cornell College of Engineering, a post he held for nine years. As dean, Bill was recognized for his work on improving undergraduate education and changing the ethos of the engineering college to welcome women and other underrepresented groups as students and faculty. He retired from Cornell in 1995 to spend more time with his wife, Jackie, who was in failing health. After her death, he helped found a company, Impact-Echo Instruments, Inc., with colleagues from Cornell and served as the company’s first president until 2010. </p>
<p>After his retirement from Cornell, Bill pursued woodworking, stained glass, and making silk screen prints copied from rubbings of English monumental brasses that he had made in England in 1966. In 1999, he married Mary Sansalone, a professor at Cornell. Their home was always full of students, and over the years they became the U.S. host family for five young women from South Asia.</p>
<p>Bill is remembered for his generous and kind-hearted nature, his daily habit (acquired as a cadet) of reading the New York Times cover to cover, his love of classical music and opera, his devotion to the St. Louis Cardinals, and his deep affection for West Point. He often said the combination of academics, athletics, and leadership training at West Point gave him the foundation for a rewarding career. Well Done; Be Thou at Peace. </p>
<p><em>— Mary J. Sansalone, Spouse, and Dick Baker, West Point Roommate</em></p>
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