General Lyle Edward “Skip” Seeman was a United States Army Corps of Engineers Officer. He was also a Manhattan Engineering District Special Assistant to General Groves at Los Alamos
On May 3, 1945 Col Seeman was appointed by General Leslie Groves to be his Corps of Engineers liaison at Los Alamos. He contributed to the greatly the efficiency at Los Alamos leading up to the Trinity test and weapons production as the war with Japan was expected to continue. This assignment lasted until August 7, 1945, when J. Robert Oppenheimer appointed Seeman to be the Los Alamos Laboratory Administrator.
Early Life
Seeman was born on July 15, 1906 in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and raised in Janesville. He graduated from Janesville High School. He then attended the University of Wisconsin for one year. He was then appointed to the United States Military Academy. “Skip” as he was known graduated West Point in 1928 and commissioned in the Corps of Engineers.
In 1934, he received a graduate degree in Civil Engineering from Princeton University. Before his World War II service, his military assignments included duty at Fort Riley, Kansas, duty at the Nicaragua Canal Survey from 1934 to 1936, and ROTC duty at Ohio State University from 1936 to 1940.
In 1929, he married Marjorie Roberta Korp. Korp was born on June 13, 1910. They had three daughters: Diane, born in 1936 in Nicaragua, Nancy, born in 1938 in Ohio, and Charlotte, born in 1943 in Tennessee.
His WWII duty included: service with the Engineer Research and Development Laboratory at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, service with the Air Forces as Regimental Commander of Aviation Engineer troops, and overseas duty on the Air Forces staff in the China-Burma-India Theater.
Later Years
In September of 1945 Seeman was made Officer in Charge responsible for improvements and construction at the Sandia Base. On October 31, 1945, Seeman was appointed Associate Director under Norris Bradbury who had been appointed Los Alamos Lab Director. Seeman was now an Area Engineer and responsible for the Sandia Z Division, Group Z-2 weapons assembly factory. He worked here until March of 1946. Seeman then worked with the Central Intelligence Agency from 1947 to 1948. He was the District Engineer of the Alaska Division from 1949 to 1952. In 1962, he assumed command of Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and retired in 1965.
He has been awarded the Legion of Merit Medal, the OLC Medal, and the Bronze Star Medal. Seeman passed away in Arlington, Virginia on December 31, 1983 at the age of 77, and is interred at Arlington National Cemetery.