Heat Transfer Engineering, 30(7):598, 2009
C Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
Copyright 
ISSN: 0145-7632 print / 1521-0537 online
DOI: 10.1080/01457630802708750

in memoriam

Dr. Jerry Taborek, 1922–2008
Dr. Jerry Taborek, a Founding Editor of Heat Transfer Engineering and the first Technical Director of HTRI, died in Sedona, Arizona, USA on October 21, 2008, just eight days before
his 86th birthday. Jerry was born October 29, 1922, in Klaster,Czechoslovakia. Between those two sets of dates and geography,Jerry inserted a remarkable record of personal and professional
accomplishments, and more living than is allowed to, or forced
upon, most of us. He was born in a newly created country after
the First World War, maturing and achieving his education under the wartime Nazi regime, escaping from the post-war Soviet
domination of Czechoslovakia to West Germany, Canada, andeventually the United States, and playing the critical role in theformation and flowering of the definitive research and designorganization in his professional specialty. It is a tale few of us
could — or would choose to — match.
For the readers of this journal, two parts of this story are ofparticular interest. Jerry was largely responsible for the creationof Heat Transfer Research, Inc. (HTRI) in the early 1960’s andfor its rise to its present central role internationally in the development and utilization of advanced design methods for heatexchangers in the process and energy industries. And he wasa major contributor to the literature on heat exchanger design,
particularly as a member of the Editorial Board of the Heat Exchanger Design Handbook and as a Founding Editor of Heat
Transfer Engineering. Jerry was very active in the (then) Heat
Transfer and Energy Conversion Division of AIChE and participated in teaching short courses on specialized topics in heatexchanger design to engineers in industry. These activities werecarried out simultaneously with a full family life — Jerry andElla were parents of Peter, Professor of Physics at UC Irvine,and Eric, Vice President of Chelsio Communications. Ella diedin 1980, and Jerry later married Edith Laier.

HTRI is Jerry’s signature creation. He was a heat exchanger
specialist at Phillips Petroleum in 1960 when he observed thesuccessful launch of Fractionation Research Inc., a cooperativeproprietary applied research organization dedicated to the betterselection and design of distillation equipment for the process industries. He initiated conversations with Don Kern of “Process
Heat Transfer” fame, Al Mueller of DuPont and other industrial heat transfer experts about starting a similar program forheat exchangers. A dozen major users, fabricators, and engineer/contractors were soon signed up, and an HTRI researchfacility was established at C. F. Braun in Alhambra, California.
Jerry became Technical Director until his retirement in 1985,
when HTRI’s world-wide membership had reached 160.
Jerry brought to the job his strong interest in the use of
the computer to do design logic as well as rapid computation,and he had the ability to integrate other people’s skills into a
united effort. Some of us were lucky enough to be able to work
closely with Jerry in relaxed and productive circumstances —typically, a few of Jerry’s closest associates questioning, arguing, comparing, and answering around the swimming pool,with Ella providing refreshments. I particularly recall the earlydays of developing the first computer-based design codes, wheresome of the correlations and design logic had to be created basedon very skimpy source data. Everybody would put in their bestmodels, interpolations, extrapolations, and guesses, and Jerry
would decide. It was challenging, it was exciting, and it wasfun. And it gave results — and still does.
And the journal you are reading came to fruition in a small
meeting at the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo with Jerry, Geoff
Hewitt, Ernst Schlunder, Bill Begell and the undersigned in attendance at the International Heat Transfer Conference in 1974.
We agreed upon the need for a journal that would encourage thepublication of applied heat transfer knowledge while meetingthe quality standards of archival literature. The increasing reputation and publication frequency of Heat Transfer Engineering
is testimony to the validity of this vision.
After retirement, Jerry and Edith sampled living in several
locations before settling on a home in Sedona, Arizona, looking
out upon the massive trees along Sedona Creek. Those familiar
with the area know that this is a choice vantage point from whichto celebrate one’s life.
In summary, Jerry’s life was well-lived and his reputation
well-earned. Jerry will be missed, but above all — Jerry will beremembered.
With gratitude for Jerry’s friendship,Ken Bell(I wish to acknowledge the assistance of Jerry’s family and Dr.
Joe Palen, Jerry’s closest associate at HTRI, in preparing thismemorial.)
December 4, 2008598