JAROSLAV VONDRICH

VONDRICH JAROSLAV VACLAV VONDRICH, Ph.D. "Yari" Yari V. Vondrich departed from this life on July 29, 2019, surrounded at his home by his loving and beloved girls, wife Olga and daughter Clara. Yari was born on January 24, 1931 on a farm in Hlubyne, in the Southern part of the Czech Republic. In the depths of his heart, Yari remained a farm boy and he had his own piece of paradise in Nova Scotia. There, in the village of Doctor's Cove, with his brilliant mind and super strong arms, over a period of several months in 2002, he singlehandedly and alone accomplished a transformation of the landscape that is now becoming the stuff of legend. After graduating from University in former Czechoslovakia with a degree in mechanical engineering, Yari was teaching there and simultaneously working at the SKODA Works, Pilsen. He also earned his Masters degree in Economics. Later in the US he earned his Ph.D. He soon became one of the most respected engineers in his field at home. Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, Yari emigrated and was sought after by top engineering firms in multiple countries including Austria, Germany, Canada and South Africa. Yari's projects ranged from giant cranes at home to bridges in Austria to radio telescopes in the USA, all of which were state-of-the-art, the most technically advanced for their time. Yari was a Vice President of Radiation Systems, Inc., in Sterling, Virginia, from 1983 to his retirement in 1999. The Company (RSI Inc.), which is now part of General Dynamics SATCOM Technologies, designed, built and installed antenna systems for scientific research, air traffic control, military radar and satellite communications. Yari's leadership, technical expertise and energy were highly respected throughout the industry. He was instrumental in the development of the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope, the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in West Virginia, which is still picking up signals from the Big Bang. The GBT was profiled in Pagan Kennedy's recent opinion piece in the New York Times: "Mike Holstine, the business manager and spokesman for the Green Bank Observatory, told me there's so much we can learn from the telescope - from the location of near-Earth asteroids to the way that matter first began to congeal into stars. Such scientific observations depend on signals as weak as "a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a watt,' he said." The GBT is 60% taller than the Statue of Liberty and affectionately referred to by locals as the "Great Big Thing." Yari also led the design of the Federal Aviation Administration's Terminal Doppler Weather Radar (for wind shear detection), as well as numerous fixed and mobile antennas, arrays and support structures. Yari was an intimidating athlete - a gymnast in his youth who once performed a one-handed handstand atop a fire lookout tower, and who subsequently excelled at soccer, skiing, tennis, volleyball and weight-lifting. He was a lifelong member of the Czechoslovak athletic organization, Sokol, and embodied fully its motto: "sound in body, sound in mind." Yari was also a lyrical savant, whose memory and recall of centuries-old Czech folk songs, German, Czech and Russian poetry, and historical lore from his native Bohemia was nothing short of remarkable. He was a singer and storyteller of materials that ranged from sublime to ribald. Guests to dinner parties at the Vondrich household were invariably treated to some kind of performance - for better or worse. In the USA, Yari is survived by his wife Olga and daughter Clara, stepson Jan Kral and his wife Nuema and their daughter Jana. In the Czech Republic, Yari is survived by his sons Jaroslav and Milan, their children Marketa, Patrick, Michaela and Milan Jr. and by four great-grandchildren. A memorial gathering will be held in October. Contact Olga Vondrich for details: ovondrich@ttrsir.com