Patric Savage

1928 - 2017

Patric Savage died on 17 August 2017 in Houston, Texas. He was eighty-eight years old. He was the son of John Stephen Savage, of Chicago, originally from Ireland, and Laura Elvira Boehme, of St. Louis, where the couple settled and where he was born. He lost his father at age ten. His various boyhood jobs included work as a night fireman and deck hand on a Mississippi River cruise boat. He attended high school in St. Charles, where his mother had been transferred. In 1946, he began his university studies at Missouri College of Mines, but, for financial reasons, could not continue; instead, he worked as a brewery chemist and then became a draftsman for American Car and Foundry. In 1948, he enrolled, with a scholarship, at The Rice Institute (B.A. in mathematics,1952). He was conscripted into the U.S. Army and sent to Europe, where he was part of the 998th Engineering Construction Battalion, stationed in eastern France. He was promoted immediately to the rank of corporal and later sergeant. Honorably discharged, he pursued postgraduate studies at Rice while working for Hughes Tool Company, where he developed its first computerized inventory. In 1962 he moved to California to work first for General Dynamics, then IBM. In 1966 he accepted a position with Shell Development (Houston), concentrating on mass computing, mass storage, and custom computer design. He retired in 1993 as Senior Research Fellow Emeritus. Chief among his interests was tennis. Others were singing, piano-playing, composing, reading (omnivorously), and travel. Patric is survived by his wife, Catharine H.S. Brosman, and his step-daughter, Katherine Brosman Deimling, of Brooklyn, N.Y., and her family. Patric will be buried with full military honors in Houston National Cemetery. A memorial service will be held on 4 November, 2017, in Houston.