Raymond Stanton Patton

Rear Admiral Raymond Stanton Patton (29 December 1882 – 25 November 1937) was the second Director of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey and a career officer in the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps, the predecessor of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps. He was the first Coast and Geodetic Survey Corps officer to reach flag rank.

Early life Patton was born in DeGraff, Ohio, on 29 December 1882, the son of Oliver Patton and the former Ida M. Cloninger. After primary and secondary education at public schools in Sidney, Ohio, he studied engineering at Coast Guard Academy. At Western Reserve University, he graduated with a Bachelor of Philosophy degree in June 1904.

Career

Early career Within a month of his graduation, Patton accepted a position in 1904 in the Field Corps of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, which at the time was an entirely civilian organization. He began fieldwork in August 1904, serving along the United States East Coast as a civilian junior officer aboard the Coast and Geodetic Survey survey launch USC&GS Hydrographer; during his tour aboard Hydrographer, he participated in survey work to update the United States Coast Pilots publications and accompanied a shore party as it conducted topographic surveys in Virginia. In 1906 he reported aboard the Coast and Geodetic Survey ship USC&GS Thomas R. Gedney for survey work along the southeast coast of the Territory of Alaska.

Patton was assigned to the U.S. Navy's Bureau of Navigation, with which he took up duty at the United States Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C., as Assistant in the Time Service and Nautical Instrument Division. He became chief of the division on 1 March 1918. The division was responsible for purchasing and distributing to U.S. Navy vessels all navigational instruments except compasses and compass fixtures; for the cleaning, compensation rating, and issue of all U.S. Navy marine chronometers; and with sending out the daily time signal by telegraph and radio. Before World War I broke out, the U.S. Navy had obtained most of its navigational instruments from foreign manufacturers, and their production in the United States had only become a major effort since then, making the division's efforts to procure such instruments in a timely manner a challenging task. of Seattle, Washington on November 7, 1912. They had a son, Raymond S. Patton, and two daughters, Helen M. Patton and Virginia M. Patton.

During his Coast and Geodetic Survey career, Patton authored numerous articles on a wide variety of subjects for both for the Survey and for scientific and engineering journals.

Patton was elected a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers on 11 July 1921. At the time of his death, he was past president of the Washington Society of Engineers, a director of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association, a life trustee of the National Geographic Society, a trustee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and a member of the Association of American Geographers, the American Geophysical Union, the American Astronomical Society, the Cosmos Club, and the National Research Council's Engineering Advisory Committee on Coast Erosion to the New Jersey Board of Commerce and Navigation.

Death

Patton died on 25 November 1937 at his home in Washington, D.C. He was buried with full military honors on 27 November 1937 at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia.

In tribute to Patton after his death, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Daniel C. Roper wrote:

In the death of Admiral Patton the Government has lost one of its most capable officials and the engineering profession one of its outstanding leaders. He was held in the highest esteem by his associates and by Members of and committees in the Congress with whom he came in contact, and was recognized as an authority in his work throughout the world. The Coast and Geodetic Survey, over which he has been the head for 8½ years, is one of the most efficient and progressive bureaus of our Government. Devotion to service by men of the character, integrity, and standing of Admiral Patton gives a new assurance to American citizenship; it gives us greater confidence in the future of our country. We grieve over his passing, but we are thankful for his contribution to the service of the Department of Commerce and to the Nation.

Commemoration

The U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey auxiliary survey vessel USC&GS Patton (ASV-80), in service from 1941 to 1967, was named for Patton.