Dr. John F. Dorsey

Dr. John F. Dorsey, professor emeritus of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE), Georgia Tech, passed away at age 71 on Friday, January 24 at his home in Greensboro, Ga., from complications associated with leukemia. In his 30-year career at Georgia Tech before retiring in 2010, he gave lectures to more than 3000 students and produced 13 PhD students, who have become leaders in points all over the world.
Dr. Dorsey was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on April 1, 1942. He received the B.A. degree from Purdue University in 1964 in Creative Writing, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Systems Science from Michigan State University in 1969 and 1980 respectively. He served honorably in Vietnam as a Navy officer aboard the carrier Valley Forge and later as a member of the Beach Jumpers. As professor, he was devoted to giving the students an extremely clear and complete exposition of the technical subject, punctuated with colorful and entertaining stories from his varied experiences. His scholarly contributions include several teaching laboratories and numerous papers on topics ranging from robotics to large scale power systems, and the textbook entitled Continuous and Discrete Control Systems with CD-ROM (McGraw-Hill, 2001). He won the Richard M. Bass/Eta Kappa Nu Outstanding Teacher Award in the School of ECE in 2007-08 and was a Senior Member of the IEEE.
He was married to Mary Ann (Ingram) Weitnauer from 1985-2011 and is survived by his sons, James Edward Dorsey and Andrew Thomas Dorsey, and his siblings, Jackie Benson, Barbara Gunger, and Thomas Dorsey.
A memorial service will be held at 11am on Tuesday, February 11, at the chapel of A.S. Turner and Sons, 2773 N Decatur Rd, Decatur, GA 30033, with family visitation preceeding.


Funeral Home:
A. S. Turner & Sons
2773 North Decatur Road
Decatur, GA
30033