Richard “Doc” Greiner joined MAS in 1995 and remained active in the club until his death two decades later. He served two terms as its president, from 1999–2001. Doc (as he was known to everyone) spent his career as a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UW Madison from 1957 to 1992.

After joining the club Doc was always a generous benefactor and donated equipment, time, and money in the interest of modernizing its observing facility, the Yanna Research Station. There are two buildings there today with Doc’s name on them and his fingerprints are on many other projects and improvements. Informal tallying over the years results in estimates that Doc’s financial donations to the club were in excess of $60,000. Doc was a driving force behind many of the innovations at YRS and the progress made in observing programs there. In addition to the two buildings named for him, Doc poured countless hours of labor into upgrading virtually every other structure at YRS and donated many telescopes. He built electronic components from scratch and fabricated many mechanical parts in his basement machine shop. His vision and generosity drove a generation of disciples at YRS to take up astrophotography and pioneer a minor planet search that racked up dozens of official discoveries.

Among other things, Doc paid to have the power lines relocated away from YRS’s southern horizon. Doc was a film photographer and then an early adopter of CCD technology.

Soon after the World Wide Web was created in the mid-1990s, Doc G’s personal web site contained a storehouse of information on the Meade LX200 and many other electronic, computer, and technical aspects of amateur astronomy. In the early days of the internet, his site quickly became an essential resource for amateur astronomers all over the world.

In addition to astronomy, Doc was passionate about photography, gardening, music, geology, Chevrolet Corvettes, and glass fusing, among many other hobbies. Shortly before his death, his collection of over 10,000 music LPs and CDs was donated to WHA radio station, and his mineral collection was gratefully accepted by the UW Madison Geology Department and named in his honor.

Few of us who got to see Doc’s basement workshop and music library/listening room will ever forget the jaw-dropping experience. His attention to detail and the immaculate nature of his craftsmanship left all his visitors feeling envious.

(This piece drew heavily from a tribute published by the UW Engineering Department, a piece in Capitol Skies by Tom Ferch, and the MAS History).

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