Ralph Bullock
Dr. W. RALPH BULLOCK P. Eng., FCAE, D. Sc. (Hon)
(June 30, 1936 - December 14, 2022)
Ralph Bullock was born June 30, 1936. He was raised on a farm near Maidstone, Saskatchewan, attending Keyworth School from grades 1 to 8, a small country school about 2 ½ miles from their farm homestead. Ralph also attended high school in Maidstone and was awarded the Governor General’s Medal in Grade XII.
Education
Ralph attended the University of Saskatchewan, obtaining his BSc in Engineering Physics in 1958 and a MSc in Upper Atmospheric Physics in 1960. Dr. Bullock was awarded an Honorary DSc by the University of Manitoba in 1997. He was elected as a Fellow to the Canadian Academy of Engineering.
Career
After working for Canadian Defence Research Establishment in 1957 and 1958, Dr. Bullock had a 40-year career at Bristol Aerospace. He was very involved in the development and use of the Black Brant family of scientific sounding rocket vehicles. From 1960 to 1979 he was Design Engineer in Space Instrumentation, working on the Black Brant IV and V rocket vehicles. He rose quickly in the senior management positions. From 1970 to 1996 he was Director of Engineering, then Vice-President of Engineering with Quality and Environment. At the conclusion of his career with Bristol Aerospace in 1996 he was Vice-President, Engineering and Quality and Vice-President Environmental Affairs, Rolls Royce Industries Canada who acquired Bristol. Dr. Bullock retired in 1998.
Early in his career he travelled several times to Resolute Bay, NWT (NU), Churchill, MB, Wallops Island, Virginia, and Brazil, sending weather balloons into the upper atmosphere. Bristol Aerospace has a 450,000 sq. ft. plant in Winnipeg and a 3,000 acre propellant plant in the R. M. of Rockwood. Brant is a solid-state propellant rocket system in single and multi-stage configurations that can carry payloads of 70–850 kg to altitudes from 150 km to more than 1,500 km. It provides up to 18 minutes of useful time for micro-gravity experiments, auroral studies, deep-space observations, and other terrestrial research.
Professional Service
Dr. Bullock was a long-time member of the Association of Professional Engineers of Manitoba (now Engineers Geoscientists Manitoba).
Dr. Bullock served as a long-time member (1993–1998) of the governing council and the executive of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and was instrumental in the establishment in Winnipeg of the NRC’s Canadian Institute of Industrial Technology and its successor, the Institute for Manufacturing Technology. He was also Chair of both the Defence Advisory Board from 1994 to 1998 and the Space Committee of the Air Industries Association of Canada .
He was involved with Red River Community College and in 1995 sat as Chair, Board of Governors (now known as Red River College Polytechnic) through to 1998. He served simultaneously on its Executive Committee and chaired its Administration Committee and its Planning Committee. He has directed these same seemingly limitless energies toward the development of science awareness of our youth, giving leadership in the launching of the Manitoba Technology Initiative, a program which seeks to excite the curiosity of school children about the world of science, engineering and technology.
He served on several other scientific and technical organizations including Manufacturing Technology Service of the Canadian Manufacturers’ Association and, provincially, the Economic and Innovation Technology Council and Total Quality Manitoba Inc.
At the University of Manitoba Ralph Bullock’s role as the main community spark plug in the early 1980s in establishing the University Institute for Technological Development is perhaps his most significant. Under his wise guidance as Chair of the Institute’s advisory board, the Institute flourished and matured into a full-fledged university/industry liaison office which brings together the scientific and technical interest of the community with the academic interest of the Faculties of Agricultural and Food Sciences, Engineering, Medicine, and Science.
Ralph Bullock was the primary force in the establishment at the University of Manitoba of the highly successful and nationally recognized Engineering and Applied Sciences Industrial Affiliates Program. He gave strong and direct leadership in the establishment of two of the university’s five NSERC Industrial Research Chairs, one in Applied Electromagnetics and one in Aerospace materials. The latter is unique in that it extends the concept of NSERC Industrial Research Chairs to include an undergraduate curriculum option, in this instance, in Aerospace Engineering.
The following quotation is from the introduction in the University of Manitoba’s citation for the award of his honorary doctorate: “Science, engineering and technology permeate and underpin virtually every aspect of our daily lives. Ralph Bullock is recognized for the contributions that he has made to strengthen the capacity of this field of human endeavour for enhancing and extending the quality of those lives even further. He has contributed unselfishly of his time and talents toward national, regional and university initiatives while sustaining a very successful and demanding career as an executive of Bristol Aerospace and its subsidiary, Rolls-Royce Industries Canada Inc.”
Personal Background
In high school Ralph was proficient in sports, winning many ribbons in track and field and playing football. During this time, he developed a passion for HAM radio.
He enjoyed golfing and was a member of Breezy Bend Golf and Country Club. Curling was another of his favourite sports to play and watch. He was a member and became President of the Assiniboine Memorial Curling Club in 1978–1979 and chaired the 1991 World Curling Championships held in Winnipeg. He qualified six times to compete in Provincial Curling Championships.
A country boy at heart, he was happiest spending time at his home north of Woodlands, lovingly referred to as “The Swamp”; it was there he retired in 1996. He held family “cookouts” at a shed prior to when the house was built. He continued with his hobby of HAM radio, his call sign was VE40G. One radio tower quickly multiplied and became a family of seven towers. There were many “tower-erecting parties” where he applied his engineering know-how to put up 40–80 foot towers with a gin pole and a winch.
While getting his master’s at the University of Saskatchewan he made life-long friends and met and married Irene Pearl Heinrichs. They moved to the north end in Winnipeg in the early 1960s. They had two daughters, Lois and Cindy. In 1968 they moved to St. James where they welcomed son William (Bill). After separation in 1989, he married Helene Jeanette Walker in 1993, welcoming her children, Reginald and Katherine, into a blended family.
References
1. Winnipeg Free Press Obituary 2. Curriculum Vitae by Dr. Bullock 3. W. Ralph Bullock, D. Sc., May 28, 1997 by the University of Manitoba for his doctorate 4. Page 2 of brochure ‘Black Brant Sounding Rockets’ By Bristol Aerospace
Compiled by
Al Myska, P. Eng. (SM), FEC Review and editing by Glen N. Cook, P. Eng. (SM), FEC, James A. Burns, PhD. Posted by Glen N. Cook, P. Eng. (SM), FEC
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