George M. (Georgie) Hnatiuk
On September 12, 2022, George M. (Georgie) Hnatiuk died unexpectedly at the age of 72. He leaves behind many life-long friends, cousins and followers of his inventions and experiments, big and small. Georgie was predeceased by his parents, George and Kay Hnatiuk and recently by his dog Khan who was his best friend and companion for the last 12 years.
George was born on July 30, 1950 in International Falls, MN where he attended grade school, junior high and high school. After graduation he attended Michigan Tech University in Houghton and received a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering, a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, and a Master of Science in Mathematics. He later attended Colorado State University and completed all course work for his PhD in Electrical Engineering. He also studied law and was so well-versed many thought he could pass the bar exam without attending law school.
In the 1980’s he worked as a research and design engineer in the Instrument Division for Hewlett Packard designing the analog front-end circuitry for numerous multimeters. “Measuring the teflon dielectric 10pF capacity with the 3577A VNA” is not a sentence most people could understand much less use in a conversation but George could and did. After HP he started his own firm, Analog Design Consultants, which was in operation until his death. As President of ADC, he offered the design of precision high-end lab grade analog circuits as well as software development for data acquisition, analysis, and display of sensor data. His primary expertise was developing and applying grounding, shielding and EMI/RFI solutions to these disciplines to ensure signal integrity in noisy environments for both low level and high speed signals. The depth and breadth of his science, electronics and math knowledge was unprecedented. George never backed down from a challenge in these fields. Most recently he designed and built instruments for realtime testing to re-prove the curvature of the earth in the hopes of convincing the flat-earth believers that they were wrong. He had great fun setting up all the equipment out on Rainy Lake and logging each and every measurement he took. The Rainy Lake Experiment was designed to show how to determine the shape of the earth (flat or round) by observing and measuring an arrangement of targets over a distance of 10 km, taking terrestrial refraction into account and using modern equipment. The experiment was an advanced version of the Bedford Level experiment executed in 1838. George collaborated with Walter Bislins and Jesse Kozlowski during this project and Bislins wrote a paper “Proof of Earth Curvature: A Rainy Lake Experiment” that explains the project and the findings in detail.
George had a plethora of projects and ideas (work and non-work) going on in his head that were sometimes committed to paper and regularly set in motion. A sun azimuth tracking system for solar panels, architectural drawings for an electronics warehouse, and plot drawings for an extensive garden to name just a few.
All things George: good friend; kind stranger; loving son; avid photographer and videographer; exasperating, annoying, and exhausting debater; and the very best companion for his beloved Khan. Khan and George were always together and still are somewhere in the cosmos.
A memorial service will be held November 2nd at 4 PM at the Green-Larsen Mortuary, 517 4th St. International Falls, MN. A reception will follow at the Ranier Community Hall, 2099 Spruce Street Ranier, MN.
Please join us to remember George and celebrate his extraordinary life.
