BALLEISEN, CHARLES EDWARD has been a member of The Technical Club of Dallas since 1967, and has served as President (1973), Secretary-Treasurer (1985), Parliamentarian and Chairman of the Program, Educational, and Nominations Committees.
Charlie received the Lifetime Achievement Award bestowed by the Dallas Chapter of Texas Society of Professional Engineers, April 2005. Charlie is SMP Professor Emeritus with 54 years of service to TSPE.
He was born October 2, 1911, in Philadelphia, PA. He graduated second in his class as BS in ME at the Drexel Institute, in 1933. He attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating SM in ME in 1934. Having taken the Federal Civil Service Examination for Junior Engineers the previous year, in 1936 he was appointed Junior Ordnance Engineer in the US Army Ordnance Graduate School at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md. He transferred to the Ballistic Research Laboratory at that station, where he made the first kinematic analyses of machine guns. In 1939 he transferred to the Office of the Chief of Ordnance in Washington, DC, as Assistant Ordnance Engineer in the Small Arms Division of the Technical Staff.
In 1942 he entered Active Duty as an officer of the Ordnance Department, eventually being in charge of the Machine Gun Development Branch, with personal responsibility for the improvement of aircraft machine guns. In 1945 he wrote “Principles of Firearms”, which was noted in the Encyclopedia Britannica as a basic source, and was a ‘wanted book’ on the Internet as late as the year 2000. “Principles of Firearms” was used by the Ordnance School, and he later rewrote it as a Training Manual for the Army. In 1957, he accepted an offer of Southern Methodist University to join their Mechanical Engineering Department, made thru the assistance of Professor Shumaker, of the ASME His assignment was to teach Machine Design, related courses, and Engineering Materials. In 1975, and also in 1976 and 1977, he was elected by the students as “Favorite Professor.”
When he retired in 1977, two students petitioned the Dean to retain him because he presented course material in a practical manner. He is a member of Tau Beta Pi, Sigma Xi, Pi Tau Sigma, and Sigma Tau. He is a member of the Texas Society of Professional Engineers and the Technical Club of Dallas. He is a Licensed Professional Engineer (Mechanical and Industrial) in Texas. He is, or has been at one time or another, a member of the ASME, Instrument Society of America, American Ordnance Association, American Society for Metals, Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education, and the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Texas Academy of Science. He has developed talks about historical persons and makes frequent appearances to social groups.
He married Martha King Wiley, of Oxford, MS in 1940. Their daughter, Janet B. Dray, lives in Rochester, NY.
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Last updated -May 10, 2005