Richard A. Compton

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Richard A. Compton (July 9, 1926 – 1993) of Ithaca, New York was an American educator, hotelman and expert in the facilities management within resort and entertainment industry. Trained as an engineer and not as a hospitality service provider, Compton was among the first to organize the emerging study of hotel management along the same rigorous research criteria applied to other academic disciplines.^[1]

Taking his engineering Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering at

A veteran of the United States Army, Compton served on the Cornell Faculty team executing U.S. Department of Defense Contract No. OCD-OS-69-42 in the late 1950s. The contract funded research into optimum food service procedures for fallout shelters; the purposes, responsibilities, policies and operations of the person selected to manage these services under the overall supervision of the shelter manager; and workable solutions to the many problems that could arise and to suggest and to explain minimum equipment needed to support sheltered American in the aftermath of a thermonuclear exchange between the United States and the Soviet Union. The report concluded, “unless the nuclear disaster is so devastating and bewildering that the population is incapable of its usual adaptive behavior and willingness to cooperate, in our opinion, competent water and food management should be able to guide most of the people through a shelter experience.”^[3] In subsequent projects, the team proposed training regimes in licensed fall out shelters to achieve the “preservation and development of the basic social objectives . . .” of American culture^[4] and that “[c]omplaining occupants need to be reminded frequently that all men can endure much more than they think they can, if they will have the will to do it, especially for the common good.”^[5]

During the Second World War, Professor Compton served in the