Biography

Dr. Paul M. Sutton. Upon graduation from Minerva High School in 1939, attended Harvard University on a four-year full-expense National Scholarship, graduating magna cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics. War duty in the U.S. Navy followed, then a return to academics. From 1946 to 1951, he continued his education at Columbia University where he earned both an M.A. and Ph.D degrees in physics and served as a graduate instructor and research associate in the physics department.

On active duty for three and a half years, during and after World War II, Sutton served a total of 11 years in the U.S. Naval Reserve. His post war service was as Training Officer for Division 3-72, 3rd Naval District, New York City. During the Korean War he also served as Commanding Officer of the 72nd Division of the New York State Naval Militia.

In World War II, following officer's training, he spent five months learning the operation and maintenance of a Top Secret acoustic homing torpedo, a successful weapon used against German submarines. He and his crew operated from Ascension Island, a volcanic cone in the center of the South Atlantic. The crew served a Naval B-24 squadron, VB-107, and, in 14 months, demolished four submarines with these torpedos.

As the war wound down, the B-24 squadron was transferred to England, and Sutton and crew were sent to North Carolina, where,just before V-E Day, off Norfolk, Virginia, the only lighter-than-air (blimp) squadron with torpedos sank another enemy submarine.

After the war, Sutton was assigned to Inspector of Naval Materials at 30 Church Street, New York City. (Today this spot is known as Ground Zero.) After six months, he was assigned to serve as Instrumentation Coordinator for the Ordinance Evaluation Group at the Bikini Atom Bomb Tests where he witnessed the fourth and fifth atom bomb explosions...historical events.

Upon return, and entering Columbia University, Sutton met, courted and married Doris Nichols, a published poet and associate editor of the Fine Editions Press. Today she is known as D.N. Sutton, and is the author of several books of peoms. They are the parents of two daughters: Pamela M. Sutton, M.D. who worked abroad with the World Health Organization and is now director of the Barbara Ziegler Program of Palliative Care and Hospice at the North Broward Hospital District in Broward County, Florida; and Valerie J. Sutton, inventor of SignWriting for writing sign languages, is Executive Director of the Center for Sutton Movement Writing, Inc. a California non-profit organization.

In the 1950s, Sutton was employed as a section supervisor and research associate in the Research Laboratory of the Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York. In California from 1959 until 1987, he held the titles of Department Manager, Research Laboratory Manager, and Development Manager at the Ford Aerospace Corporation's California Division at Newport Beach. His work at Corning involved theory and experiment on transmission of electricity and ultrasound through glass and development of techniques to measure stress in glass. His work at Ford Aerospace was chiefly optics and laser related, proposal preparation and research project administration.

From 1974 until the present, he has been involved in management and planning for the non-profit Center For Sutton Movement Writing, Inc. Sutton SignWriting permits writing of any of the world's many signed languages and has been proven as an excellent tool for teaching those who are born deaf. The system is being studied in some 40 countries and is in effective use in Germany, Denmark, Brazil, Switzerland, Norway, Ireland, Malta, Canada and in the USA. For a person skilled in a particular sign language, anything written in that language in SignWriting is easy to read. There are no other sign language writing systems for everyday use.

The Suttons have been residents of California since 1959 and live in the La Jolla part of San Diego. They tend to spend winter months in Fort Lauderdale, Florida where they are active in poetry circles.

The News Leader
June 18, 2005