James Luse, 80; Navigation Pioneer

Newport Beach resident James David Luse, a retired Coast Guard captain and pioneer in the invention of satellite marine navigation systems, will be buried with full military honors Tuesday at Arlington National Cemetery.

Luse died Jan. 8. He was 80.

The Ohio native lived for more than 30 years in the Southland. He rose in the ranks of the Coast Guard and fought during World War II. He began developing marine satellite systems in the early 1960s, work that eventually gained national attention.

He helped develop the first computer program to prevent ship collisions, a radar target alarm and the first completely automated container ship, programmed to improve merchant marine efficiency.

“He was ahead of his time. He was a visionary. He was an unsung hero,” said son James D. Luse Jr., a Yale University theater studies instructor. “He loved doing what he did. He loved inventing these things. Some of them actually worked and sold.”

The burial Tuesday will be followed by a memorial service Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. at Pacific View Chapel in Corona del Mar.

His wife of 56 years, Mickie J. Luse, said her husband “just loved the sea. He used to talk about going [alone] . . . around the globe.”

He never did make it. But his son said that he did “more than most people do in a lifetime before he was 29 years old.”

As a young man, he was admitted to the Coast Guard Academy and graduated early because of World War II. He won many awards: American Theater with Star, European Theater with Star, American Defense Medal with Star, National Defense Service medal with Bronze Star, World War II victory medal, and the Expert Pistol medal. Then the Coast Guard sent him to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he garnered a master’s degree in science.

That period was followed by a career in the Coast Guard as chief of engineering or commanding officer of a Coast Guard ship, family members said.

He served as chief of engineering for the 11th Coast Guard District in Long Beach in the late 1960s.

“He was a very sharp guy. He made a lot of contributions when things were changing very quickly to satellites,” said Charles Niederman, former assistant branch chief in the Long Beach district.

Luce retired in 1969, then went to work for several companies, including the aerospace firm Philco Ford, until three years before his death.

“He never wanted to retire,” his widow said. “He loved his life in the Coast Guard. But he loved navigation and he helped private companies for as long as he could. He was a wonderful man and very dedicated to the sea.”