Gregory Charles Minor, 62, an Engineer Who Criticized Nuclear Power

G. C. Minor, 62, an Engineer Who Criticized Nuclear Power
By WOLFGANG SAXON
July 31, 1999


Gregory Charles Minor, one of three middle-management engineers who caused a stir when they quit the General Electric reactor division in 1976 to protest nuclear power, died on July 20 at his home in Telluride, Colo. He was 62.


The cause was leukemia, which had been diagnosed in early June, Jim Burch, a friend in Palo Alto, Calif., said.


Mr. Minor, Richard B. Hubbard and Dale G. Bridenbaugh resigned from the division of G.E. that built nuclear reactors, saying that they believed nuclear power presented a profound threat to mankind. 


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All three were managing engineers who had spent most of their careers building reactors, and their defection galvanized anti-nuclear groups across the country.


''My reason for leaving,'' Mr. Minor declared, ''is a deep conviction that nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons now present a serious danger to the future of all life on this planet.''


In Congressional testimony, the three cited the possibility of human error and asserted that nuclear engineers had become so specialized that none of them could see the whole picture any longer. As a result, they said, no one was in control.


The three founded a consulting firm, MHB Technical Associates, in San Jose, Calif. For 20 years they conducted studies and testified on the safety, reliability, construction and economics of power plants.


Mr. Minor evaluated energy programs for Federal agencies, 13 states, the Governments of Sweden and Germany and public-interest groups around the world. 


MHB was technical adviser on the 1979 movie ''The China Syndrome,'' which was denounced by the nuclear industry but seemed prophetic when the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania experienced a partial meltdown that year.


A native of Fresno, Calif., Mr. Minor was a 1960 electrical engineering graduate of the University of California at Berkeley. He earned an M.S. degree at Stanford University in 1966.


He went to work for G.E. in 1960. While there, he managed an engineering group working on new designs for reactor controls, safety systems and control rooms.


Early this year he and Mr. Hubbard followed Mr. Bridenbaugh into retirement and closed their company. Mr. Minor's illness was diagnosed after a lengthy stay in France, and he opted against radiation and chemotherapy to spend his remaining time visiting family members and friends.


Mr. Minor is survived by a son, Mark, of Salida, Colo.; two daughters, Lisa Buckley of Soquel, Calif., and Tani Scheiner of Sebastopol, Calif.; two sisters, Sue Bird of Hilo, Hawaii, and Michelle Minor of Vancouver, B.C.; and six grandchildren. His marriage to Gayle Pat Minor, of Santa Cruz, Calif., ended in divorce.