Norman Bernhard Nill

Norman B. Nill, 63, of Brookline, NH died Thursday, October 30, 2008, after a long battle with cancer. He was born in Utica, New York on January 26, 1945, the son of the late Ulrich B. and Ruth Nill of New Hartford, New York, where he resided (New Hartford High, Class of '63) until entering college at RIT (BS in image science), followed by a stint at the University of Rochester Institute of Optics, and then on to NYU for graduate studies (MSEE). At home, Norman enjoyed the simple pleasures of life: keeping a house in shape, staying well-informed of the world around us, enjoying driving, believing in the golden rule, going out to a good dinner with his family, playing with his border collie and interacting with and guiding his daughter as she enters upon the path of life. Professionally, Norman had a long 42 year career in imagery systems engineering, publishing a number of recognized technical papers in the fields of image assessment techniques, sensor performance characterization and image quality evaluation, for which he developed an image quality algorithm in continuing use to this day. In his 27-year career at the MITRE Corporation in Massachusetts, he was the focal point for 15 years supporting the FBI in their long-running successful certification program for fingerprint capture devices for application to criminal justice and home land security, in which he played an instrumental role with in-depth analysis of product test data. Earlier at MITRE, he was deeply involved with defining requirements and expected performance for ground exploitation systems serving military imaging reconnaissance systems, in support of our national defense goals. Norman's first employment of ten years in the 1970's was with Perkin-Elmer Corp. in Connecticut. As an imaging engineer there he was responsible for image quality performance assessment of a National Technical Means remote sensing and imaging reconnaissance system. During this period he also worked on specialized imaging aspects in connection with the development of the Hubble Space Telescope. Norman's efforts in this area included analyzing the potential capability to find planets outside our solar system. He is survived by his loving wife of 29 years, Lin, and 16 year old daughter, Katrina both of Brookline; a brother, Chris and his family of Manchester, New York and his mother, Ruth and sister, Diane both of New Hartford, New York. He also has a number of relatives from his wife's side, residing in the Philippines. There will be a private memorial service for family members. In lieu of flowers, kindly consider a generous donation to the Community Hospice House, 210 Naticook Rd, Merrimack, NH 03054.