Garoq

My condolences to Mr. Egan's family and associates.

I met Joe in the early '90s during the time of the infamous reload burn video fiasco.

Joe was indeed a good friend of the hobby. May he rest in peace.

Aphyle

10Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest.

11I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favor to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

12For man also knoweth not his time: As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them.

Ecclesiastes 9:10-12


I am sincerely grateful for all of his hard work, and hope that this work will not have been in vain. My thesis advisor once told me that you could tell your work was done, really done, when the recognition/award/degree would be awarded posthumously. If the recognition cannot come in life to Mr. Egan, then let it come after - and soon.

ddmobley

From: NAR_Sections On Behalf Of Mark B. Bundick
Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2008 6:54 PM
To: NAR Sections List
Subject: [NAR_Sections> Final Flight - Joe Egan

Writing an obituary is the worst job an NAR President can have.

The NAR's lead counsel, Joe Egan, one of the nation's top nuclear attorneys and a fellow rocketeer, died May 7, 2008, of gastro-esophageal cancer. He was 53 years old, and leaves behind wife Patricia, daughter Jennifer, and son Warren.

The son of turkey farmer Dick Egan and his wife Lucy from Melrose, Joe made his way to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earning three degrees, in physics, nuclear engineering, and technology & policy. He was also captain of MIT's varsity track team and an accomplished concert pianist. After working in the control room of a nuclear power plant and consulting on policy issues for the United Nations and other organizations, he attended law school at Columbia University, where he graduated with honors and went on to practice nuclear law.

Joe walked into the NAR Board meeting in Phoenix in 1992 in response to a call for a volunteer lawyer for the NAR. He proclaimed "I think you have a problem with the FAA and I think I can help." Working then for Shaw Pittman in Washington, D.C, legal counsel to many US airlines, he secure nearly a quarter million dollars of pro-bono work that resulted in changes to Federal Air Regulation Part 101 to permit notification launches. Many NAR sections and TARC launch makes use of the rule changes Joe secured every year. In 1999, Joe came back to us to lead the legal effort to stop the unnecessary and illegal regulation of APCP motors by the BATFE, an effort that he developed the strategy for and led up until his untimely death.

Since the litigation began, Joe and I worked closely together. I came to know him, and respect his legal skills. Any lawyer who can pass the bar exam can read and understand the law. A good lawyer can figure out how the law applies to and can be turned to the advantage of his client. But a great lawyer can do both those things and explain it to his client in English. Joe Egan was a great lawyer.

But more than that, NAR members need to remember that, before he was a lawyer, Joe was trained as an engineer, and that rocketry was a hobby from his youth. Whenever we got together for dinner prior to a court hearing, before we settled into the business at hand, there was always time to talk about rockets. Having your lawyer share the knowledge of your activity, to say nothing of the passion of its practice, is an uncommon, unique experience. It's those rocketry times, more than anything else, that I'll treasure from my time with Joe.

Joe often spoke of the party he would host when we win our litigation. He and I agreed to share a toast there to the effort, both its success and the rightness of our cause. That I will not be able to share that toast with him is a most bitter disappointment. His passing leave me, and I hope you, the average NAR member, even more committed to completing the work Joe started for us.

Members who wish to express their condolences to the Egan family should direct cards and letters to:

Mrs. Patricia Egan
750 Fourth Street South
Naples, FL 34102

Mark B. Bundick, President
National Association of Rocketry

H_rocket

Wow a lawyer who flew rockets. That was a true contradiction in terms. I never met the man however knowing that small bit, I know we are a lot poorer for his passing.

I think I'll have to launch one for him tomorrow.

tquigg

Not so hard to believe actually. Our club has a member who is an attorney who is also a pro-tem district court judge.

That's what I like about this hobby... you meet all kinds of people from a wide range of backgrounds....

ddmobley

Joseph Egan, Lawyer Who Fought Nuclear Waste Site, Is Dead at 53

By MATTHEW L. WALD
Published: May 12, 2008

WASHINGTON — Joseph R. Egan, a nuclear engineer-turned-lawyer who led Nevada’s legal campaign to block a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, died Wednesday at his home in Naples, Fla. He was 53.

The cause was gastroesophageal cancer, his family said.

Mr. Egan, in an obituary he wrote weeks ago that was posted on his law firm’s Web site after his death, said that he had arranged for his ashes to be spread at Yucca Mountain, in Southern Nevada, with the words “radwaste buried here only over my dead body.”

Mr. Egan’s wife, Patricia, said by telephone on Friday that Mr. Egan had been cremated, adding, “We are going to do it.”

Legal challenges by Mr. Egan’s firm, Egan, Fitzpatrick & Malsch, have helped set back the Energy Department’s project at Yucca by years. In 2001 he filed a lawsuit raising a variety of legal objections to the site, which was chosen by Congress. In 2004 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed with one challenge, that the repository should be judged over one million years, not over 10,000 years as the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency had planned. The Yucca project’s fate is not clear today, 10 years after it was to have opened.

Mr. Egan’s specialties included nuclear nonproliferation law. He lobbied the federal government to take back highly enriched uranium that could be useful in a weapons program but had been exported to various countries under the Atoms for Peace program beginning in the 1950s.

On behalf of workers and an environmental group, he sued Lockheed Martin for illegal waste storage and disposal when it operated a government-owned uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Ky. The Justice Department later joined the lawsuit. He filed an antitrust suit against the operator of a nuclear waste dump in Utah on behalf of a client who wanted to open a competing dump in Texas. (The suit was settled after the Texas site opened.)

Mr. Egan earned an undergraduate degree in physics from M.I.T., and then two master’s degrees, in nuclear engineering and in technology and policy. He worked as a nuclear reactor engineer for Commonwealth Edison in Illinois and later for the New York Power Authority. He received a law degree from Columbia University, and was a partner at Shaw Pittman in Washington and a senior associate at LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae in New York before founding his own firm in Washington.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Egan is survived by two children, Jennifer and Warren, of Naples; his parents, Dick and Lucy Egan of Melrose, Minn., where Mr. Egan grew up; a brother, Timothy, of Billings, Mont.; and three sisters, Michelle Langlas of Naples and Anne Gant and Denise Loonan, both of Minneapolis.

(Source: http://www.nytimes.com/200...4e66f5&ei=5070&emc=eta1)