The Lesson - Dedicated to My Father, James Boyd Beach

The Lesson © Marian Fortunati

I'm dedicating this post to my father, James Boyd Beach, who passed away peacefully at home yesterday morning.   It was Leap Day... A unique day for a very unique man.

James (Jim) Boyd Beach was born in Oklahoma in September of 1918 and was graduated from the University of Oklahoma with a BS

	Last month at his "GD's" baby shower

degree in mechanical engineering (aeronautical option).  After graduation, he hired into Lockheed in Burbank in 1940 as a Junior Detail Draftsman.

His entire career was with Lockheed in Burbank where he progressed through the engineering design and management classification to Chief Engineer for Production Design.  He retired from this position in 1978.

He was involved in the design or management of most of the aircraft developed by Lockheed during the 38 years of his career.  he worked as a designer in every phase of aircraft development from preliminary design to production design.  He was the Division Engineer on Lockheed's Supersonic Transport project.  When it was cancelled, he became Design Team Leader of the L-1011 project.  He held many positions on the L-1011 project.  In 1975 and until he retired, he was Chief Engineer for Production Design which included military as well as commercial aircraft programs for the Lockheed Aircraft Co.

Jim was a design engineer by training, experience and choice.  He holds eight U.S. Patents and was a leader among his peer groups.

He had many hobbies and made many friends from hobbies such as furniture making, jewelry making, video making and digital video editing. An article was written about his last video making project which was published in the American Motion Picture Society online newsletter.  Here is a link to the video on U-Tube:

http://youtu.be/GP8cHtW4MC0

  His name is Jim Beach.

His wife of 65 years, Hattie Lee Beach, passed away in 2007.   He is survived by their daughter (me), Marian Fortunati, an artist and former elementary school principal, son-in-law Gastone Fortunati, owner of Computer Revolution., three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren Despite his illness, he had hoped to live at least a few more weeks so he could meet his third great-grandchild - a boy.   I'm sure both he and my mother will watch over all of us.

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I painted the painting shown above several years ago of my Dad and my grandson, Tyler.   It was a typical moment in time for each of them.

The excitement of learning something new lights both faces as the child teaches his great-grandfather how to log on to a favorite website.

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My Dad was my friend, my mentor and the type of person I will always aspire to be like.  The world was better because he was here. 

I will miss him so very much.   I will also miss his comments on my FASO blog. 

I'd like to think he and my mom are enjoying another great adventure now.

 

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