Nather was born September 23, 1926, in
Helena, Montana, to Frederick Bucklin Nather and Florence K. Skillman. He joined the
United States Navy serving in the
Second World War as an
electrical technician in
Palawan Island, Philippines and
Guam. After the war he attended
Whitman College, and was awarded an undergraduate in English. He then worked for
General Electric at the
Hanford Engineer Works, a
nuclear production facility in
Washington state built for the
Manhattan Project. From 1960 to 1961 Nather worked as a programmer for
Royal McBee, a computer company, where he was impressed by the
programming skills of his colleague Melvin Kaye. As Nather didn't hold a
graduate degree he was prevented from becoming a member of the department's faculty. In 1997 he was awarded the Maria and Eric Muhlmann Award by the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific for his work on the Whole Earth Telescope. ==References==