Norman Richard Serra

Norman R. Serra, died on August 26, 2024, at the age of 99. He was born in Los Angeles on July 2, 1925 to Laura and Jack Serra. He was proud to be a descendant of the first Spanish settlers who arrived in New Mexico in 1599 (before the founding of Jamestown or the arrival of the Pilgrims).

Raised in South Los Angeles during the depression, he said it was a wonderful place and time to grow up, freedom from harm, lots of neighborhood children, learning to work at an early age with his first paper route at the age of 9, taught by the Sisters of Notre Dame at St. Columbkille Elementary school, and graduating from Mt. Carmel High School.

At age 18 he joined the Army Air Corps and completed training as a B29 Bombardier with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant. His fascination with the Norden bombsight and the Sperry autopilot led him to a career in engineering.

He met his beautiful Janet Sullivan at the UCLA Newman Club in 1947. They were married at St. Paul's Church in Westwood on May 26, 1951. She was the love of his life. They designed and built their family home in Pacific Palisades where they raised their five children.

His UCLA engineering degree led to a career in aircraft guidance and control. He joined Litton Guidance and Control Systems in1958 and was proud that the inertial navigation systems he helped design and build contributed to the defense of our country and to the delivery of millions of airline passengers to their destinations. He retired in 1990.

After retirement he had many activities, programming, carpentry, delivering meals on wheels, bread for the needy, and computer work at Catholic Charities, Corpus Christi Church and UCLA. His interests were his family, job, home, church, the family cabin in Yosemite, reading, tennis, skiing, music, inventing, traveling through the U.S., Europe and Asia, exchanging email with friends and relatives and in his final years, oil painting.

He was grateful for a long and happy life, for loving devoted parents, for a free college education on the GI Bill, for 60 years with his beautiful and wonderful wife, for his children and grandchildren who gave him great pleasure, for a wealth of family and friends, for a long and rewarding engineering career with colleagues he enjoyed and respected and for the opportunity to contribute in a small way to the community and to the country he loved.

His beloved Janet died of Alzheimers in 2011. He is survived by their children, Stephen, Maureen, Joan, Kenneth and Jack and grandchildren Michael, Annie, Stephanie and Ryan. In his later years he was blessed with the love and companionship of Linda Smith who brought him joy and happiness and to whom we are extremely grateful.