He died at Courtland Rehabilitation and Living Center in Ellsworth, Maine, on Dec. 11, 2001, at the age of 88. He and his family lived on Peaceable Hill Road for 35 years before moving to Oak Point, Maine, in 1982. He and his wife, Peggy, later moved to a retirement community in Blue Hill, Maine, in 1997. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he was the son of the late Robert Newell and Elizabeth Irene Kinnaird. Mr. Kinnaird received his bachelor of science in physics and astronomy from Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., and in 1936 earned his master of science degree in astronomy from the University of Chicago. He joined Northwestern University as a research assistant at the Dearborn Observatory where he worked on the stellar photometer project to make faster measurements of the brightness of stars possible. After Mr. Kinnaird had worked short time designing optics for Bell & Howell movie cameras, Richard S. Perkin, one of the founders of the Perkin-Elmer Corp., hired him in 1940. At the time, the company was the brainchild of Mr. Perkin, an investment banker, and Charles Elmer, an amateur astronomer, who believed there was a market for very high quality optical work in this country. Mr. Kinnaird was the sixth employee and second optical engineer to join the office in lower Manhattan. Mr. Kinnaird and his wife, Peggy, bought a house in Peaceable Hill Road in 1946. During the Second World War, Perkin-Elmer became an important government contractor doing optical science and engineering for new inventions. Many of these ideas were Mr. Kinnaird's. He was project engineer for optical gunsights in bombers, special tracking cameras, telephoto lenses and rangefinders for the Army and Air Force. He worked on development of the 40-inch T-5 telephoto lens that was used to film the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The company received a citation from General Hap Arnold for its significant contributions to the war effort. After the war, Mr. Kinnaird assembled a team of scientists and engineers from all over the world to develop laser and infrared technologies. These efforts resulted in an infrared spectrometer, the beginning of a new industry for analytical instruments. He also designed the optics for the first optical-electronic bombsight to be installed in a highspeed aircraft. The plane was the B-47, built just before the Korean War, and orders poured in for the this latest advancement. His work on secret government projects continued in the Cold War with the development of cameras for the U-2 spy plane. Perkin-Elmer made aerial landscape photography possible from 80,000 feet. Mr. Kinnaird provided the vision for the design of new photographic systems. With his longtime colleague Dr. James Baker of Harvard, he refined lenses in the first use of computers for computer-aided design, now an industry in itself. He was also an expert in the use of rare earth glass for optics, a new composite of much greater quality than standard optical glass. Mr. Kinnaird was a practical engineer. During the early stages of the Mercury Program in the 1960s, he was working out the details of a periscope requested by NASA so that the astronauts could see out of the capsule. He suggested they put a window in the spacecraft. A porthole was added so Alan Shepard could see Earth on his first flight. In his last years with Perkin-Elmer, Mr. Kinnaird worked extensively with NASA on various projects for the Mercury, Sky Lab and Apollo programs. In retirement, he continued his lifelong interest in mathematics by doing extensive theoretical work in the fields of statistics and probability. While calculating his gas mileage, he uncovered an error in the historic Method of Least Squares that had persisted for several hundred years. He wrote and presented papers on the subject including an article in The Journal of the American Physical Society. He is survived by his wife, the former Margaret Evelyn Thompson of Blue Hill, Maine; two sons: Robert of Ridgefield and Richard of Bethesda, Md.; a brother: Robert Newell Kinnaird Jr. of Hattiesburg, Miss.; a brother-in-law, George Brueske of Arcata, Calif.; and four grandchildren, Emily and Lance of Ridgefield, Katherine and Alexander of Bethesda, Md. A memorial service will take place in Maine at a later date. Interment will take place at Saint Stephen's Church, Ridgefield. Donations may be made in memory of Mr. Kinnaird to a scholarship program in math and science at Millsaps College Donor Relations, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210.—Jack Sanders in The Ridgefield Press, 2001