 He spent two years as a graduate apprentice with Babcock & Wilcox Ltd, then went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, MA, where his research on laminar and turbulent flames earned him a ScD two years later.In 1939 he married Barbara Runkle (d. 1992, granddaughter of MIT's second President John Daniel Runkle), and they had one son and two daughters.After MIT, he returned to Babcock & Wilcox.