Walter Runkel

Walter E. Runkel (January 4, 1916 – legal death October 7, 1991) was a long-time officer of the Cryonics Institute and one of the four founding members of it. He was the technical director of a television network studio in Detroit.

A hands-on person good with tools, he helped with the construction and outfitting of the original CI facility. He owned an apple orchard and developed a new subspecies of apple, the "Runkel apple".

The fifth patient of CI, he was cryopreserved. The main building of CI is named the Erfurt Runkel Building in honor of Jack Erfurt and him.