Farewell
Ara Bagdasarian (M.S.’72 MSE) died in January at the age of 75. He started out working at the National Iranian Oil Company and then returned to the United States, where he had a long career focused on improving environmental outcomes in the American oil industry, including a role as chief materials engineer at Chevron.
Charles Bucher Sr. (B.S.’60 CE) died in November at the age of 90. He had a 43-year career as an engineer with the California Department of Transportation, starting as a surveyor of U.S. Highway 101 through San Francisco, and later with key roles in the design of Interstate Highway 280 and other regional projects.
Anne-Louise Guichard Radimsky (M.S.’67, Ph.D.’73 EECS) died in July at the age of 79. She was one of the first women to earn a doctorate in electrical engineering and computer sciences from UC Berkeley, later becoming the first female faculty member in computer science at UC Davis. In 1979, she joined the computer science department at California State University, Sacramento, where she taught for nearly three decades and served as department chair. She also spent 20 years as a program evaluator and later as a commissioner for the Computing Accreditation Commission.
David Jenkins, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, died in March at the age of 85. A faculty member since 1964, he was known as a superb teacher and world-renowned expert on the chemistry and microbiology of waste-water. He was a member of the National Academy of Engineering, won the Fair Distinguished Engineering Educator Medal and received the Water Pollution Control Federation’s Outstanding Publication Award for an archival journal publication that has stood the test of time.
Robert Kaifer (B.S.’50 EECS) died in November at the age of 93. He was a radio operator for the U.S. Merchant Marines, then served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. Later, he worked as an engineer at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for 37 years.
Robert Lyss (B.S.’58 ME) died in December at the age of 84. After graduating, he served in the U.S. Army, attended medical school at UCSF and then resumed his service at a military hospital. He later completed his dermatology residency at UCSF and embarked on a long career as a physician, including roles as physician-in-chief and regional medical director for Kaiser Permanente. He also chaired the Kellerman Foundation Board, where he helped design a community hospital and nursing school in Uganda.
Alaa Mansour (M.S.’62, Ph.D.’66 Naval Architecture), professor emeritus of mechanical engineering, died in January at the age of 83. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1975 and was an internationally recognized expert in structural reliability and safety, probabilistic dynamics of marine structures and the strength of ship and offshore structures. He also made notable contributions to offshore wind energy development with his research on wind turbines.
Ahmad Moghaddas (B.S.’65, M.S.’66 CE) died in September at the age of 82. After graduating, he worked in the City of Berkeley’s civil engineering department. He later ran his own engineering and land surveying company in Berkeley.
David Pelz (B.S.’59 CE) died in March 2020 at the age of 83. He worked as a highway engineer for the Federal Bureau of Public Roads, then had a 35-year career with the City of Davis’ public works department, where he served as director for 27 years.
Gail Preston (B.S.’53 CE) died in November at the age of 92. He worked for the United States Steel Corporation, where he was a senior engineer for the bridge division, and later for the State of California as a staff engineer. He also served in the U.S. Army in World War II and again in the Korean War.
Leslie Robertson (B.S.’52 CE) died in February at the age of 92. He was the lead structural engineer of the original World Trade Center, and he also designed the structural systems of notable skyscrapers including the U.S. Steel Tower in Pittsburgh, Shanghai World Financial Center and the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong. Among his many honors, he was a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
William Schick (B.S.’57, M.S.’58 ME) died in August at the age of 88. Over the course of his 40-year engineering career, he worked at Philco-Ford and GTE Sylvania, designing custom communications equipment.
Kilian Schindler (MEng’16 IEOR) died in May 2020 at the age of 30. He was a Ph.D. student at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and had recently completed his dissertation on scalable stochastic optimization. In September, he was awarded his doctoral degree posthumously.
Daniel Tellep (B.S.’54, M.S.’55 ME) died in November at the age of 89. After graduating, he worked on groundbreaking space and missile technologies at Lockheed. There, he rose through the ranks, eventually becoming chairman and chief executive; orchestrating the merger with Martin Marietta to form the world’s largest military contractor, Lockheed Martin; and becoming Lockheed Martin’s first chairman and chief executive. He was also a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
Frank Walter (B.S.’60 CE) died in December at the age of 91. During his 51-year career as a civil engineer in Tuolumne County, he designed and engineered numerous shopping centers, industrial parks, water and sewer systems, parcel and subdivision maps, roads and bridges.
