|
Light a Candle
Rich Wyles was born in the California Bay area. He attended UC Berkeley and received a master’s degree in EECS. He served in the National Guard throughout college in order to pay for college. In the National Guard, he became an expert shooter. He went to work for Hughes Aircraft Company in Carlsbad, CA as an integrated circuit designer specializing in infrared focal plane arrays. Raytheon eventually bought out Hughes Aircraft. Rich continued to work for Raytheon and retired in 2017 after 32 years, 13 patents, and about 120 pounds of awards.
Rich enjoyed the outdoors; he went mountain bike riding, surfing, hiking and backpacking. Prior to his annual “boys” backpacking trip, there was frequently some kind of work crisis that needed his attention, but he held firm on attending the backpacking trip. He said that he remembered every single one of his backpacking trips in great detail, but that he didn’t recall any of the work crises. He was proud of carrying a monster backpack each year, but he was equally proud that he innovated new backpacking improvements and he was able to carry an extra beer for a fellow backpacker who had lost a leg in Iraq.
Rich loved kids and was a big kid himself. He loved swinging the kids around at family gatherings and giving piggyback rides and making up fun games. When he played with kids, he said “Bigger is better. More dangerous is better. Louder is better”. Many children remember their “Uncle Rich” fondly. Their parents may have less fond memories of Rich taking the 14-year old for a driving lesson, pouring gasoline down the street and lighting it on fire, or hiking across dangerous precipices.
Rich had endless curiosity about the natural world. He enjoyed learning and exploring and was equally excited about sharing his knowledge with others. Even after retiring he said, “I’ll always be an engineer.”
Rich was a wonderful teacher. He enjoyed the mentoring part of his job very much. When he explained something and the student didn’t understand, instead of explaining it louder, he always tried to explain it in a different way to make sure the message got across. He wound up working many extra unpaid hours just to help his fellow co-workers.
Rich was very humble. Although his position entitled him to a bigger private office instead of a shared cubicle, he turned down multiple offers to move to a bigger office because he said that he wouldn’t be as available to help others.
Rich would have been surprised (and pleased) that so many people have mentioned how kind a person he was. If there is one word that described Rich, it would have been "kind".
------------------- Links to memorial video and photo albums will be updated below -----------------------
Link to photo sharing site (thanks to Jay Soch) https://photos.app.goo.gl/qeN3GazWW9qvzfK57
----------------------------------------------- Santa Barbara memorial (May 19, 2019) ------------------------------
Link to the Santa Barbara memorial video: https://vimeo.com/
----------------------------------------------- Hawaii memorial (April 24, 2019) ------------------------------
Link to the eulogy for Rich Wyles, delivered by Bill Wyles on April 24, 2019 at the Mililani Makai chapel on Oahu in Hawaii. (36 minutes) https://youtu.be/Sg86vo4pdVE
Link to the slideshow that we had for the Hawaii memorial. (25 minutes) https://youtu.be/l8UDpup2HuY
