Heat Transfer Engineering, 31(14):1220, 2010
C Taylor and Francis Group, LLC
Copyright 
ISSN: 0145-7632 print / 1521-0537 online
DOI: 10.1080/01457632.2010.502814

in memoriam

William Begell, 1927–2009

William (Bill) Begell, 82, died on Saturday, July 4 2009
at Mount Sinai Hospital, New York after a protracted illness.
Bill had been President of Begell House Inc., the publisher ofmany journals, books and handbooks in the heat transfer area.
He had a long history in publishing, starting as a co-founder ofScripta Technica in 1962 and continuing with the founding ofHemisphere Publishing Corporation in 1966 and Begell House
Inc., in 1991. The medical and heat transfer and fluid flow
areas have always been the main foci of Bill Begell’s publishingactivities, the latter reflecting his early career as Engineering
Director of the Heat Transfer Research Facility at Columbia
University. A leading figure in scientific publishing, he was oneof the founding members of the Society of Scholarly Publishingand has received many awards. He was a Fellow of ASME andreceived the 2005 ASME Heat Transfer Division DistinguishedService Award.
Bill Begell will be remembered not only for his many professional achievements but also for his remarkable character. He
retained his love of life, his sense of humor, and his empathetic
nature despite a truly tragic history. He was born (as WilhelmBeigel) in Vilnius (then Vilna) in Lithuania (then Poland) onMay 18, 1927. Vilnius was subjected successively to Russian,German and (again) Russian invasions and Bill was the only

member of his family who survived. Bill’s father (Ferdinand)
was shot by the SS on September 4, 1943. A week and a halflater, on September 23, Bill, together with his mother and maternal grandmother were sent to the Heereskraffahrpark laborcamp (HKP) in a move intended to save them from deportationand death. With the encouragement of his family, Bill escapedfrom the HKP on June 30, 1944 but, tragically, his mother andgrandmother were deported four days later and killed. After the“liberation” of Vilnius in July 1944, Bill made his way westward
and finished his schooling in post-Nazi Germany. He eventuallyimmigrated to the USA in June 1947, where he trained andpursued a career as an engineer and, eventually, as a publisher.
The tragic aspect of Bill’s life was continued in the untimely
deaths of his beloved children (Freddie as a result of an accident
and Alysia of leukaemia) and of his first wife Ester, who diedof heart failure soon after the passing of Alysia. Despite thepersonal devastation that these events brought to Bill, he somehow recovered and, until his final illness he appeared to havereturned to something like (though never quite) his original self.
One of the many memorials for Bill’s life is the legacy ofongoing publications which he founded; these include not only
the publications of his company Begell House Inc. (which isstill going strong under the leadership of Yelena Shafeyeva) but
also through the many other publications which started under
his guidance in earlier days. In particular, Heat Transfer Engineering had its beginnings under the tutelage of Bill Begell
during his period at Taylor & Francis. On a journey from Tel
Aviv to London, Ken Bell and myself were bemoaning the lackof practical journals in heat transfer. Rather than just talking
about it, we co-opted Jerry Taborek and Ernst Schlunder andmade a combined approach to Bill Begell who agreed to launch
HTE with Ken Bell as the first Editor-in-Chief. I am sure that
Bill Begell would be pleased to know that HTE is still meeting its objectives in publishing material of direct relevance topractical heat transfer.
Bill Begell was a quite remarkable person who, despite thetragedies which beset him, gave so much happiness to those hemet. He was loved by his many friends, whose lives he enriched
and who will miss him dearly.

1220

Geoff Hewitt
Founding Editor, Heat Transfer Engineering