Heimerdinger, Walter Lee Walter was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on August 31, 1937, to Walter Edward Heimerdinger and his wife Enid Hughes Heimer- dinger. Enid was a distinguished graduate of the Chicago Art Institute. Walt's father, a civil engineer, had graduated from Michigan Technological Institute. Walt was sailing his boat on a sunny day on Lake Monona, Madison, WI, April 28, 2018, when he drowned. Because Walter's father worked for the railroad, the family moved frequently during Walt's younger years. In junior and senior high, he was an active Boy Scout, a Life Scout. He always loved to tinker...to take things apart and reassemble the pieces to see how they worked. In 1955 Walter graduated from Morgan Park High School in Chicago. He continued his studies at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, joined the U.S. Naval Reserves, and graduated from the University of Illinois in 1959 with a Bachelor's Degree in Electrical Engineering. Following his graduation, Walt served five years of active duty in the United States Navy, South Pacific Command. In 1972, Walt received a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering, also from the University of Illinois. He retired from the U.S. Navy after 30 years with the rank of Captain. It was at Champaign that Walt met his future wife Eunice Kanning, who was pursuing a Master's Degree in Mathematics. They were married in 1985 at St. Peter Lutheran Church in Afton, Minnesota. Walt and Eunice settled in a large old brick and stucco home in the Linden Hills neighborhood of Minneapolis, several blocks from Lake Harriet. Walt spent his entire professional life at Honeywell, retiring as a Senior Research Fellow. His career included leading the development of the Ada programming language jointly with Bull SAS of France. Ada is now used all over the world for programming safety critical aeronautics and space computers. Numerous safety critical systems developed by Walt for Honeywell and for the US Government continue to be used today. Walt was a recipient of the H.W. Sweatt Award, Honeywell's highest recognition, awarded to only the top 0.3% of its engineers and scientists. Walt was active in the research community. He helped organize the IEEE Symposium for Real Time Systems for many years, and, until his passing, he was a core member of the International Federation for Information Processing Working Group on Dependable Computing and Fault Tolerance. A Honeywell colleague said this of Walt: "As a scientist, Walt was the quintessential collaborator. He was the smartest guy around, but he always valued the insights of others, and was always free with his own. He was a wonderful mentor and coach, and generally a delight to work with. Walt was always smiling, and he always made others smile. He made everyone around him feel better." Walter is survived by his wife Eunice Kanning, his sister-in-law Elynor Kimmel, his brother-in-law Eugene Kanning, and twelve nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held at St. Peter Lutheran Church, 880 Neal Ave. S., Afton, MN on Friday, May 11, 2018 at 11:00 a.m. Visitation will be at the church from 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. before the service. Memorials may be made to Minnesota Orchestra.

Published on May 10, 2018