Warren W. Hannon

Warren joined the Army in 1942 and served during WWII until discharged in 1945. He joined ROTC as a student at the University of Kansas and was later commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Air Force Reserves. Following graduation from the University of Kansas in 1951 with a degree in Engineering Physics, he was hired by IBM to work at the IBM Research Laboratory in Endicott, New York. He was hired because he said he liked to invent things.

While working for IBM in the early 1950s, Warren helped design one of IBM's first computers. A few years later, while working for DIT-MCO, his fascination with electrons led him to invent the universal electrical circuit analyzer, which DIT-MCO has continued to develop to this day. The company’s circuit analyzers were used to test the electrical system of the Mercury spacecraft which launched John Glenn into space, the spacecraft of the Project Gemini Space Flight program and the spacecraft of the Apollo Saturn V program, which ultimately landed men on the moon.

After leaving DIT-MCO, Warren co-founded Stepper, Inc. with his brother, Charles Hannon, where they worked together to invent and manufacture newspaper packaging equipment that was used worldwide.

In his later years, Warren maintained a home office and website to promote a business model for the newspaper industry that he believed would make it profitable and financially independent to pursue investigative reporting of national and world events. He believed that newspapers are one of the pillars of a democratic society and serve to provide citizens with the information they need to make informed decisions, ferret out corruption and unite a diverse group of people.

Warren is survived by his devoted wife of 64 years, Eleanor Hannon; his children, Scott Hannon (Carol), Ellen Bodine (Tom), David Hannon (Betty), and Alice Hannon, as well as adopted daughter, Susan Shepherd; grandchildren, Chris Hannon, Amanda Hannon, David Bodine, Alexandra Thiessen (Adam), Zachary Bodine, Alyssa Hannon and Brianna Hannon.

Warren is also survived by his brother, Charles Hannon; sisters-in-law, Mary Beth Kaiser, Etta Snouffer, Esther Middlemass and brother-in-law John Middlemass. He was predeceased by his three sisters, Ruby Mullin, Caroline Kauffman and Frances Hannon.

The family suggests memorial contributions to the Piney Woods School in Piney Woods, MS or the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews.