Obituaries

For almost 25 years, Mr. Grafton was a scoutmaster and leader of Boy Scout Troop 187, based at the Fairfax United Methodist Church. A former Eagle Scout, he helped more than 70 Boy Scouts achieve that rank, the highest in scouting.

He also served on the executive board of the National Capital Area Council of the Boy Scouts. As provost of the University of Scouting, he coordinated a program that trained hundreds of adult scout leaders. He received the Silver Beaver award from the National Capital Area Council for his service to scouting.

Survivors include his wife of 24 years, Christanne Doub Grafton of Newtown and Fairfax; and two daughters, Kimberly Anne Grafton and Sarah Elizabeth Grafton, both of Fairfax; his mother, Mary Katharine Grafton of Clinton; and a sister.

William C. CooleyConsulting Firm Founder

William C. Cooley, 81, a mechanical engineer and authority in jet propulsion technology who owned and operated an engineering consulting firm in Rockville from 1968 to 1984, died Oct. 27 at Anaheim (Calif.) Memorial Medical Center. He had Alzheimer's disease.

Dr. Cooley's firm, Terraspace Inc., focused on hydraulic engineering -- water jet technology in particular. In the mid-1970s, the company developed a water cannon to help tunneling efforts during rail-line construction.

The business later created a hydraulically powered mechanical rock breaker for use in urban areas where blasting was discouraged.

He received a dozen patents in his field and in 1985 won the WaterJet Technology Association's top prize. In 1998, he gave a keynote address to the fifth Pacific Rim International Conference on Water Jet Technology in New Delhi.

William Crockett Cooley was born in Lakeland, Fla., and raised in Randolph Center, Vt. He graduated from Green Mountain College in Vermont before joining the Navy V-12 program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he received a degree in mechanical engineering in 1944.

He received a master's degree in aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology in 1947 and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1951.

During the 1950s, he was a research engineer for North American Aviation in Los Angeles and a nuclear propulsion engineer for General Electric in Cincinnati.

From 1959 to 1963, Dr. Cooley was chief of the space propulsion and auxiliary power program at NASA in Washington. He went on to serve as technical director of the engineering firm Exotech Inc.

He was a former associate professor of computer science and engineering at George Mason University and a former board member of its Learning in Retirement Institute. He also was a volunteer tutor to high school students.