OBITUARY: Bohdan T. Hnatiuk, aeronautical engineer, community leader
MERION PARK, Pa. - Bohdan Taras Hnatiuk, aeronautical engineer and consultant, and professor emeritus at Drexel University, died on November 28 at the age of 83.
Dr. Hnatiuk was born on July 25, 1915, in Zalischyky, western Ukraine. He received his engineering degrees from the Technical University in Danzig, Germany, including a doctorate in engineering in 1945. During his student years in Danzig, he was president of the Ukrainian Students' Association and vice-president of the Ukrainian National Alliance.
During World War II Dr. Hnatiuk did research work at the University of Vienna on high-speed aerodynamics and turbo-jet engines. With the imminent invasion of Vienna by the Soviet Army, he was granted a transfer to a large aviation facility on the Swiss border. At the end of the war, and until 1949, he worked for the French Air Ministry in the French Zone of occupied Germany. He also was the director and a teacher at the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) Mechanic Training School, in Tettnang, Germany.
Dr. Hnatiuk emigrated to the U.S. in 1949. He was an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame in 1951-1957 and professor at West Virginia University in 1957-1960. In 1960 he joined the faculty of Drexel University, where he taught mechanical engineering and worked as advisor until 1995.
While in Indiana, Dr. Hnatiuk also worked as a consultant for the Bendix Aviation Corp., Guided Missile Section, on the U.S. Navy Talos Project (1955-1957). Subsequently, he was a consultant also to the U.S. Navy's Allegheny Ballistic Laboratory and to Pneumo-Dynamic Corp. in Washington. In 1967-1969 Dr. Hnatiuk was engaged in space research for NASA at the Alabama - George C. Marshall Space Flight Center.
Dr. Hnatiuk was a member of many professional societies, among them: the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Society for Engineering Education, American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Association of University Professors, Air Force Association, American Ordnance Association, and the West Virginian Society of Science.
Among various awards, Dr. Hnatiuk was the recipient of the AIAA's 40-year service award for sustaining contributions to the field of aeronautics and astronautics (1993), as well as the institute's outstanding faculty advisor award at Drexel (1972). Dr. Hnatiuk was accorded honorary membership in the Chapel of Four Chaplains in 1981.
His membership in honorary engineering societies included: Sigma Gamma Tau, the National Honorary Society of Aeronautic Engineering; Pi Tau Sigma, Honorary Mechanical Engineers' Society; and Tau Beta Pi, the Engineers' National Honor Society.
An active member of the Ukrainian community in America, Dr. Hnatiuk was a member of the Ukrainian Engineers' Society of America, the Shevchenko Scientific Society, Ukrainian American Association of University Professors and the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council.
He was a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists; founding member of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians; honorary member of the presidium and longtime president of the Organization for the Rebirth of Ukraine; vice-president and treasurer of the United Ukrainian American Relief Committee; chairman of the board of directors at the Olzhych Research Foundation; and member of the executive committee and Philadelphia branch president of the National Committee to Commemorate the Millennium of Christianity in Ukraine.
Dr. Hnatiuk was a member of the Ukrainian National Association Supreme Assembly, serving as auditor in 1970-1986. He had been an honorary member of the UNA Supreme (now General) Assembly since 1982.
A panakhyda for Dr. Hnatiuk was held December 3 in Philadelphia. On December 4 a requiem service was held at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Philadelphia, followed by interment at St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Cemetery in Fox Chase, Pa.
Dr. Hnatiuk is survived by his wife, Irene (nee Tomkiw); daughters, Wolodymyra and Irene; son, Oleh; 14 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren; brother, Myroslav, with wife, Anna and sons, Bohdan, Yuriy and Andriy and their families; as well as relatives in Canada and Ukraine.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 13, 1998, No. 50, Vol. LXVI
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