Kurt Josef Lidl

1968 - 2019

Kurt Josef Lidl, of Potomac, MD, died on Thursday, October 10, 2019, of aggressive metastatic kidney cancer. He was born on May 11, 1968, in Rockville, MD, to the late Marilyn (Morton) Lidl and the late Ernst Lidl. He is survived by his partner of 31 years and wife of 23 years, Debbie, their sons, Zach and Leo, and his sister, Grace.

His family moved to Smithsburg in 1973 to build a house and establish a small farm, where they later raised cows and goats, gardened, planted thousands of trees, and built other structures themselves. The community spirit of the folks on their road and the nearby area stayed with Kurt throughout his life.

After graduating from Middletown High School in 1986, he attended the University of Maryland in College Park, where he studied Electrical Engineering and later Zoology and Classics, made many lifelong friends, and watched many movies. Kurt left college in 1992 before obtaining a degree to become a very early employee of UUNET, the first commercial Internet Service Provider. While there, he also helped start the first commercial Web hosting service and contributed to standards and protocols still in use on the Internet today. He spent his remaining years working on computer hardware, operating systems, applications, networking, and security at start-ups and established companies, as well as contributing to multiple open source projects, like FreeBSD.

Kurt was a devoted husband and father. He and Debbie had great fun traveling extensively before having children. They also enjoyed traveling with Zach and Leo, particularly in Hawaii, California, New York City, and Ocean City. He loved building things with his sons and helping them learn about everything from computer hardware internals to forms of government to growing pumpkins. He shared his passion for science fiction and movies with his family. Kurt was saddened that they would not be able to finish watching the last two seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation together but was extremely pleased that they all made it to the theater in July to see the most recent movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He stayed active practicing karate with his sons, earning his black belt third degree at the age of 50.

Kurt was incredibly thankful and appreciative of all of the help, comfort, and kind words from friends near and far following his diagnosis, for him as well as for his family.

A celebration of life will be held in November on a date and in a location to be determined.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to the FreeBSD Foundation (), the American Chestnut Foundation (), or the Freedom from Religion Foundation ().

Expressions of sympathy may be offered to the family at www.staufferfuneralhome.com.