JOHN L. HORN Jr.

John L. Horn, Jr. John L. Horn, Jr., rock climber, cyclist, and long time employee of LucasFilm Ltd., passed away on July 18, 2011, in San Francisco, CA. The cause of death was a stroke. He was 55 years old. John was born in Denver, Colorado on February 15, 1956, the first of the 4 children of John Horn, Sr. and Bonnie Hoskins Horn. During his youth John was a competitive gymnast, rock climber, and amateur photographer. He attended Stanford University, graduating in 1980 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering. After college, John worked for PG&E on the seismic retrofit of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. At the age of 25 with less than a year on the job, he blew the whistle on the most famous snafu in this nuclear plant's history. Thereafter, John's passion for problem solving and photography lead him to reinvent himself into a software engineer. In 1988, he began his 22 year career at LucasFilm on the EditDroid project, helping transition film editing from analog to the digital age. He transitioned to the R&D division, the "code mine" as he called it, where he remained until his death. John codeveloped image processing, animation, and motion capture technologies, including 2 systems that won Academy Awards for technical achievement. He worked on dozens of feature films, including Hook, Jurassic Park, Forrest Gump, the Star Wars prequels, and Cowboys & Aliens. In recent years, he helped the video games division with tools for The Force Unleashed, worked on a pre-visualization system used extensively on the Clone Wars TV series, and contributed to a project with a patent application pending. Over the years, John collaborated creatively with dozens of artists and engineers. In the words of colleague Steve Sullivan, "John's spirit, humor, and kindness will be greatly missed." John's climbing accomplishments span over 30 years and 3 continents. His climbing career began at age 16 during a family year abroad in England. In the 70's he was among the early pioneers to climb in Eldorado Canyon, CO. While at Stanford and PG&E, John spent weekends scaling Yosemite's big walls, climbing the Nose route on El Capitan in 1982. After a brief hiatus, he rediscovered climbing by joining several local climbing gyms and became a convert to sport climbing. He first embraced the joy of the "big whipper" when ticking off 5.13 grade projects at Jailhouse crag near Sonora. In the last 15 years of his life, John and his wife Laurie's shared love of sport climbing took them to France, Spain, Greece, Thailand, and John's favorite climbing area of them all, Red River Gorge Kentucky. John L. Horn, Jr. is survived by his wife Laurie Berliner Horn; children Ryan and Kelsey Horn; mother Bonnie Hoskins Horn and mother-in-law Vivian Berliner; stepmother Penelope Trickett; siblings James Bryan Horn, Julia Banzi, Jennifer Zoltanski-Rosenheim; and nieces and nephews Zahra Banzi, and Kyle and Haley Horn. John departed from this world much too early and is deeply missed by his family and the many friends and colleagues who loved him. Donations in John's memory may be made to the American Alpine Club, 710 10th Street, Ste. 100, Golden, CO 80401.