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]