Frederick Sledge Stinson

Fred was born in Meridian, Mississippi to Frederick Austin Stinson and Anna Catherine

Sledge Stinson. He grew up in a military family and lived at several Air Force bases as his family moved to his father's various assignments. While his father was stationed in London, England, Fred attended and graduated from a high school for children of American service personnel. A stellar student, he was selected for a National Merit Scholarship in his senior year. Fred was fond of his time in England and maintained contact with classmates throughout his life.

Fred returned to the US for college and received his undergraduate degree from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He went on to graduate studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island where he earned a Masters and PhD in Child Psychology with a focus on experimental studies of learning in infants. His first job after finishing his doctorate was as a research professor in the Child Behavior Institute at the University of Iowa. Fred quickly decided that teaching was not his career goal. After completing a post-doctoral degree in industrial/organizational psychology at the University of Minnesota, he moved to Washington DC where he worked for firms conducting research on a variety of social science and health issues under contract to agencies of the federal government. After several years in commercial consulting firms supporting government research, Fred was recruited into the government and worked for the Department of Health and Human Services, where he conducted intramural research for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He gained recognition as an expert on the epidemiology and etiology of alcohol abuse and dependence and related mental health problems. He published numerous articles in scientific journals on addictive and psychiatric disorders and attended conventions in the US, Canada and Europe to convey the findings of his research to practitioners and other researchers.

Fred was highly interested in computers and technology. When microcomputers were first introduced around 1980, before they even had keyboards, he built one from a kit and learned to program it. Later he bought one of the first Apple computers and developed programs to run on it. He subsequently owned and used a succession of later Apple and Microsoft products as they came on the market. He used these machines to conduct statistical analyses for his research studies and a variety of other functions. Throughout his professional life and into retirement, he maintained a high level of proficiency in computer technology.

Fred was interested in movies and had an encyclopedic knowledge of films and actors and actresses. He assembled a large library of films from different eras and transferred his collection to digital format to be streamed on his home network.

After his retirement from NIH, Fred moved to Port Charlotte to be near his lifelong friend

James Colliver. There he enjoyed retirement with a close-knit set of friends who had all retired in Florida.

Fred was predeceased by his parents. He is survived by his two brothers Thomas Stinson (wife Karen), and David Stinson (wife Shelly), his sister Catherine King (husband Hal), and numerous nieces and nephews.

The family wish to thank James Colliver and other friends who helped Fred immensely over the past years of his illness.