One of the dominant figures of the CERN accelerator physics community retired at the end of June. Kjell Johnsen, from the days of the construction of the Proton Synchrotron to the recent creation of the flourishing CERN Accelerator School, has made major contributions to the work of the Laboratory. His broad knowledge of the field and his careful analytic mind have made him a valuable member of any team, most recently in his continuing chairmanship of the electron-positron collider subpanel of the CERN Long Range Planning Committee.
It is however as leader of that remarkable team that built the CERN Intersecting Storage Rings that Kjell Johnsen is best known.
When construction began, the feasibility of physics from hadron col liders was still in doubt. The machine was so superbly built that it swept all before it — exceeding design parameters by far, contributing greatly to knowledge of accelerator physics and technology, paving the way for the hadron colliders of today and of the future. Kjell Johnsen can take much of the credit for this achievement.
Extracted from the original article you can find on CERN Courier, Volume 26, September 1986.