Albert Ross Eckler Jr. was born on August 29, 1927, and died on December 9, 2016.

He was a logologist and statistician, and author, the son of statistician A. Ross Eckler.

Eckler Jr. received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and a Ph.D. in mathematics from Princeton University.

While working at Bell Labs, Eckler co-authored Mathematical Models of Target Coverage and Missile Allocation with Stefan A. Burr.

He was the former publisher and editor of Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics. He wrote a book on logology titled Making the Alphabet Dance.

Eckler Jr. was also the author of The National Puzzlers’ League, The First 115 Years, a history of the National Puzzlers’ League (NPL).

Eckler Jr. and his wife Faith were married for more than 50 years, and were former NPL editors under the collective nom de plume “Faro” (with variant forms “FAro” for Faith and “faRO” for Ross).

His hobbies were genealogy and supercentenarian research. Eckler disproved exaggerated age claims such as those of Charlie Smith and George Fruits while authenticating others such as Delina Filkins (1815–1928).