US Navy Rear Admiral. He is regarded as the "Father of Aegis" for his work as the US Navy's Aegis Weapon System Manager and later as the manager of the Aegis Shipbuilding Project Office. He was born in Brunswick, Missouri where his parents were livestock and grain farmer who lost their farm during the Great Depression of the 1930s. He received his primary education in a one-room schoolhouse and attended Brunswick High School, graduating in May 1943. He enlisted in the Navy's V-12 competitive college program of the US Naval Reserve prior to graduation and was called to active duty in July of that year and was enrolled at the University of Kansas Engineering School at Lawrence, Kansas. In February 1946 he was awarded a bachelor of Science Degree in Electrical Engineering and the Navy commissioned him as an ensign. He then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for eleven months and received his radar and sonar training and was then ordered to serve on the destroyer USS Goodrich. He served as part of the US Occupational Forces in the Mediterranean Sea, to include the Greek Civil War and the creation of Israel in 1948. The same year he was transferred to the Regular Navy and periodically over the next 20 years he served in the Pacific. From 1951 to 1955 he attended the Joint Guided Missile School at Fort Bliss, Texas, the Naval Line School at Monterrey, California, and served as an instructor at the Atomic Weapons School, Norfolk, Virginia. He then returned to sea duty as Executive Officer on the USS Strickland followed by an assignment on the Staff, Commander, Destroyer Force, Atlantic. Returning to Monterrey to study ordinance engineering followed again by MIT for 12 months, after which he was awarded a Master's Degree in Aeronautics and Astronautics and was assigned to the guided-missile cruiser USS Galveston as a fire control officer and gunnery officer for its conversion as the first of the US Navy's Talos cruisers. In 1963 he was selected to serve in the Navy Task Force for Surface Guided Missile Systems and four years later he became the Director of Engineering at the Naval Ship Missile Engineering Station at Port Hueneme, California. In 1970 he returned to Washington DC as Manager, Aegis Weapon System, Naval Ordinance Systems Command. His philosophy of "Build a Little, Test a Little, Learn a Lot" became the standard for testing and milestones of the Aegis system. In 1972 he was named the last Project Manager for Surface Missile Systems and in July 1974 he became the first Director of Surface Warfare in the newly created Naval Sea Systems Command at the Washington Naval Yard, Washington DC. In January 1975 he was promoted to the rank of rear admiral and in July of that year he became the founding Project Manager for the Aegis Shipbuilding Project Office, remaining in that position for the next eight years. In September 1983 he was reassigned as Deputy Commander, Weapons and Combat Systems at the Naval Sea Systems Command and retired in that position in 1985, with 42 years of continued active and reserve duty in the US Navy. Among his military decorations and awards include the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Meritorious Service Medal, the Navy Meritorious Unit commendation Ribbon with Bronze Star, the China Service Medal, the American Campaign Medal, the World War II Victory Medal, the Navy Occupation Service Medal, the National Defense Medal with Bronze Star, the Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross with Palm Unit Citation, and the Republic of Vietnam Civil Actions Unit Citation. Other distinguished awards that he received include the American Society of Naval Engineers Gold Medal (1976), the Old Crow Electronics Countermeasure Association Silver Medal, the University of Kansas Distinguished Engineer Alumni Award (1981), the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Missile Systems Award for Distinguished Service (1983), The Navy League's Rear Admiral William Sterling Parsons Award (1985), the Harold E. Saunders Award for a lifetime of contributions to Naval Engineering (1985), the Admiral J.H. Sides Award for major contributions to Anti-Air Warfare, National Security Industrial Association (1988), and the 2008 Missile Defense Agency Ronald Reagan Award. In 1997 he was designated a Pioneer, Navy's Acquisition Hall of Fame in the Pentagon. After his Navy career, he ran a consultant agency in Crystal City, Virginia, chairing and serving on numerous panels and committees related to his Navy work. On November 27, 2006 the new Navy ship USS Wayne E. Meyer was named in his honor, which was commissioned on October 10, 2009, making him one of only a few to have that honor bestowed upon him while he was still living. He died of congestive heart failure in Washington DC at the age of 83.