Gernot Maria Rudolph Winkler (October 17, 1922 – April 30, 2016) was responsible for the Time Service Department of the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) from 1966 to 1996.
[1] Winkler oversaw the introduction of caesium beam-based Coordinated Universal Time based on hyperfine transitions and an internationally transportable "flying clock".
This in turn led Winkler to promote precision global positioning techniques (initially by time-reliable surface broadcasts in the LORAN and Omega radio-beacon chains, later by two-way satellite time and frequency transfer (TWSTT).
[1] Gernot was born in the Austrian town of Frohnleiten, which is the home of a technology institute (Technisches Büro für Luftfahrt und Maschinenbau).
In 1956 he and fellow Austrian Fritz Reder arrived in the United States to work in the microwave resonance branch of the Signal Corps, joining the USNO that year.