Gordon Gay passed away on September 18, 2019. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. During Gordon’s infancy, his father – who was a U.S. citizen and a manager with the Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain – moved the family back and forth between the United States and Canada, managing company stores in Calgary, Alberta, Spokane and Walla Walla, WA. His father then took a job in Canada exploring for oil which required frequent moves, every 11 months during his youth. Moving frequently nurtured the fond memories Gordon has of many places in Canada, which he spoke of often.
Gordon was attending high school in Calgary when, in 1943, he received a preliminary “greetings” from Uncle Sam. Those “greetings” required that he establish residency in the United States, so a relative in Bellingham, WA took him in and Gordon met his legal obligation to register for the draft. However, Gordon opted to enlist in the U.S. Navy instead of waiting to be drafted into the U.S. Army. He joined the Navy in 1943, went through boot camp in Farragut, Idaho, completed gunnery training, and ended up on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. From there he joined a PT boat squadron field unit that serviced the armament for all of the PT boats in the Pacific Fleet until the war’s end in August of 1945. In June of 1946, he was discharged as a Gunner’s Mate 2nd Class at the Navy yard in Bremerton, WA. In his retirement years, Gordon was happy to be part of the PT Boaters group, where he and his wife Dorothy traveled to gatherings all over the US.
Upon returning from his enlistment in the Navy, Gordon returned to live with his family in Edmonton and completed his high school studies at a veteran’s school in 1947. After a brief course of study at the University of Washington, Gordon decided to return to California and pursue a career in aeronautical engineering. In 1949, he enrolled in the Cal Aero Technical Institute in Glendale. These were only the first two of many academic pursuits that were to take him also to LA City College, Cal Poly, and the University of California at Irving; all of these studies were completed while he was building a rewarding career as a design engineer with aerospace companies.
Gordon’s career as an Aerospace Engineer led him to work with firms such as Bendix Pacific, Raytheon, Lockheed, North American Rockwell, McDonnell Douglas Astronautics, Santa Barbara Research, Hughes Research and Delco Electronics. He worked on such projects as Apollo, NASA Space instruments and the manned orbital lab.
While attending Cal Aero in Glendale, he met his bride-to-be, Dorothy at a church youth group function in 1950. This led to their eventual marriage on August 29,1953. Their two daughters were born shortly after, Linda, now living in Ketchikan and Dana, now living in Maui.
They moved around California between LA and Santa Barbara during Gordon’s career but eventually permanently settled in Goleta in 1970. Gordon was convinced that Santa Barbara was the very best place a person could live.
After retiring in 1987, he consulted at Delco for another couple of years. He and Dorothy joined Lawn Bowling, went on cruises, traveled the United States visiting family and friends, and enjoyed life.
He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Dorothy Gay, daughters Linda (Sam Bergeron) Millard, Dana (Tim) Burke, grandchildren, Daniel, Anna, Colette, Geneva, and great-grandchildren Ascher, Ilai, Cassie and Lucas.
There will be a celebration of life on Sunday, October 6 at Maravilla Clubhouse, 5500 Calle Real from 2 to 4 pm, in lieu of flowers, a memorial donation can be made to the PT Boaters Association, ptboats.org.
