Robert Shelby Singleton (born March 25, 1933) is an American engineer, inventor, scientist, teacher of magnetics and computing.
His father was Richard Leland Painter, a storekeeper-gauger with Internal Revenue Service, and who later rose to assistant to the director of ATF.
Shortly after graduation he enrolled at the University of Florida, but left after his first semester to enlist in the United States Army for service in the Korean War.
He graduated with a BSEE degree summa cum laude with an honors project to design and build a microwave parametric amplifier.
Singleton joined the Army National Guard while still in high school and spent two years in the infantry heavy weapons platoon.
[4][5] This was a 40-week training class led by engineers from AT&T Bell Laboratories, the designers of the system, for the 12 men who would ultimately maintain the electronics for the first fully operational Nike anti-aircraft missile site.
Singleton accepted the offer to join Bell Telephone Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ as member of the technical staff in 1959.
[10][11][12][13] He was also an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the University of Florida, teaching graduate level courses in Advanced Circuit Theory and Transients in Linear Systems.