ON THE CLOCK: Cutler helped prove Einstein right. Courtesy Cutler Family

Architect of Time
Without Leonard S. Cutler’s work on super-precise atomic clocks, there would be no GPS navigation, modern computer networks would no longer function, and financial transactions would grind to a halt. He proved things theorized by Albert Einstein and built commercial clocks that much of the modern world depends upon. Cutler, ’58, MS ’60, PhD ’66, a long-term employee at Hewlett-Packard and its spin-off Agilent Laboratories, died September 4 after collapsing while camping with his family in Big Basin, Calif. He was 78.

Cutler, born in Los Angeles in 1928, served in the Navy and then attended Stanford for two years before returning to Los Angeles to help his family financially. In 1957, now married, he returned to the Bay Area and finished his degrees.

During a nearly 50-year career, Cutler developed the world’s most accurate commercial timekeeping devices. The most recent, the Hewlett-Packard 5071A cesium clock, introduced in 1992, is accurate within one second in every 1.6 million years. “Len set the standard for world-class research,” says Darlene Solomon, chief technology officer and vice president at Agilent.

Dorothy Cutler describes her husband as “quiet and reserved and gentle”—which probably contributed to a familiar scene at the company: people so in awe of the physicist that they would part to the walls of a hallway as he walked down the middle.

But his most obvious trait was an insatiable curiosity. “He would ask the same question again and again. I told him he was interrogating,” Dorothy Cutler recalls. “I’m analyzing,” her husband would reply.

His other survivors include four sons, Jeff, Greg, MS ’82, PhD ’88, Steve and Scott; his brother, Fred; his sister, Anita Roth, and four grandchildren.

She Eavesdropped on Elephants
A Portland, Ore., biochemist known for her discoveries on how elephants communicate, Lois Elizabeth “Bets” Little-Rasmussen, ’60, died in a Seattle hospital on September 17 of a bone marrow disorder. She was 67.

A research professor at Oregon Health and Science University, Little-Rasmussen collected elephant urine and found the sex pheromone that females secrete to let bulls know they’re ready to mate. She determined that other secretions were associated with the animals’ sexual activity and conflict resolution. She also pioneered a technique for collecting and analyzing the breath of aquatic animals, so that it could be used to monitor their health.

She earned her doctorate in neurochemistry at Washington U. in St. Louis, in 1964. In 1994, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for her work.

Survivors include her husband of 45 years, Rei Rasmussen; two sons, Erik and Rob; two brothers; and three sisters.

Yosemite’s Friend
The president of the Yosemite Association, Steven Paul Medley, ’71, of Oakhurst, Calif., died in a car accident October 5. He was 57.

Medley had led the nonprofit, dedicated to educating the public about the national park’s plants, wildlife and history, since 1985; its membership grew to more than 11,000. He wrote or produced more than 50 publications, including guidebooks, children’s books and maps. His The Complete Guidebook to Yosemite has sold nearly 100,000 copies.

A Palo Alto native who grew up in Gilroy, Calif., he began working at Yosemite as a seasonal ranger. He earned a master’s degree in library science from the U. of Oregon in 1975 and a law degree from UC-Davis in 1981.

Survivors include his wife of 30 years, Jane; three sons, Charlie, Joe and Andy; his mother; and one sister.