Sidney Owen Jr.
Feb. 12, 1930-June 18, 2014
Palo Alto, California

Sidney "Sid" Owen Jr. passed away on June 18, 2014, at the age of 84. He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Warwick, New York, working with his brother Charles in his family's Fold-up Tie Holder Company.

Graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1951, he joined Raytheon's Sparrow III missile project as an electrical engineer, then worked at Itek and Lockheed on the highly classified Corona reconnaissance satellite. Only decades later was he free to talk with pride about the technological achievements that protected the country through the Cold War. In 1977, he started a company to manufacture his one-handed "Writehander" computer keyboard. Later, he was engineering supervisor for precision arc lamp devices at ILC Technology until he retired in 1995.

Sid enjoyed taking his family camping and hiking, instilling in his children a love of the outdoors. He made home improvements and volunteered to help people with computer problems. He pursued film and digital photography, charcoal drawing and genealogy. Sid was an engineer through and through, a punster, joker, and storyteller.

Sid is survived by his wife of 56 years, Angela, son Bruce and daughter-in-law Merryl Owen, daughter Leslie Owen, sister Ann and brother-in-law Dirk Verhulst, and their sons Eric and Ken.