Albert Ephraim Ketler

Albert Ephraim Ketler, 91, of Murrysville, Pennsylvania, died on December 20, 2025, in Pittsburgh, following a brief illness.

Born October 6, 1934, in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, Albert was the son of Elizabeth Doster Ketler and Albert Ephraim Ketler Sr. From an early age, he demonstrated a remarkable mechanical curiosity and inventiveness. His sister, Harriet Kratzer, once recalled the day he removed the wheels from her roller skates – without permission – to repurpose them for a homemade cement mixer.

Albert honed his innate skills by graduating from Bucknell University in 1956 with a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. He began his professional career at General Electric, where he completed the company's prestigious six-year engineering training program. With the equivalent of a Ph.D., he was assigned as a systems project engineer on the SNAP-27 program, a joint project of NASA and the Atomic Energy Commission that developed radioisotope thermoelectric generators deployed during the Apollo moon landings. Albert took lifelong pride in knowing that this technology continues to power space probes, including those now traveling around Jupiter.

A licensed professional engineer, Albert invented many devices that were patented, such as the Reentry Protection for Radioisotopes in Space. He also was an entrepreneur. He founded Ocean Energy Inc. to pursue his patent on a seawater battery power supply. When the National Data Buoy program was canceled in 1971, he renamed his firm Ocenco Inc. (later to become Minetics Inc.) to develop permissible lighting and safety systems for underground coal mines.

Building on that mine-safety work, Albert founded Rel-Tek Corporation to develop and produce computer-based gas detection systems for mines, including the groundbreaking FireBoss carbon monoxide monitoring system – the first-ever mine-wide monitoring system approved by the Mine Safety Administration. Rel-Tek later expanded into transportation safety, producing hazardous gas-detection systems for mass transit, tunnels, and municipal garages.

Albert was a man of wide-ranging talents and interests. He authored hundreds of scientific papers, was a gifted marketer who revived historical mining terminology for modern safety products, and had a creative sense of humor – evident in Rel-Tek's SmokeBoss monitor, famously represented by a cigar-smoking bulldog. Only late in life did he admit how quickly he named his company "Rel-Tek," which was simply "Ketler" spelled backward.

Albert was musically inclined, able to play several instruments by ear, including the piano, organ, and saxophone. For a time, he was a licensed airplane pilot. He also was a feminist.

When asked recently what mattered most to him, Albert replied, "Nature." He took great pleasure in feeding the birds. He spoke to the deer that grazed in his yard. He also enjoyed hiking – as a kid along the Susquehanna River, in Murrysville at Duff Park and Townsend Park, and for a few years with his beloved golden retriever, Scooby. Once at age 75, he completed the iconic, seven-mile McAfee Knob hike in Virginia with his daughter Heidi.

Albert delighted in the May bloom of his specialty azaleas and rhododendrons – so much so that he scheduled annual meetings with his all-female Rel-Tek board of directors to coincide with their peak. He hoped that a graft from a rare orange-blooming azalea, taken by a botanist affiliated with Phipps Conservatory, would one day live on there.

Many marveled that at age 91, Albert went to work at Rel-Tek every day, and he tended the four acres surrounding his home, which included an extensive vegetable garden and for many years apiaries. A fond memory of Albert will be of him relaxing on his swing, a glass of red wine or scotch in hand, content and pleased with the rewards of a physically demanding day.

Albert is survived by his three daughters and sons-in-law, Heidi Ketler and Stephen Larsen; Audrey and Jon Elszasz; and Julie and Steven Cantrell; four grandchildren, Hayley and Hanna Elszasz, James Wyatt and Ryan Albert Cantrell; a nephew, Greg Kratzer; and many extended family members. He also considered family his longtime friend and business partner Deanna Della Vedova, her son, Joseph P. Della Vedova, and his loyal Rel-Tek employees.

Albert was a subscriber to the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra and the River City Brass Band, and he was active in the Murrysville Export Democratic Party and the Westmoreland County Beekeepers Association. A Carnegie Museums member, he especially enjoyed the Kamin Science Center.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the River City Brass Band School of Brass. The family's online guestbook is available at Pittsburgh Cremation & Funeral Care.