Nicholas A. "Nick" Orsini II

1929 - 2020

Nicholas "Nick" A. Orsini II

Jan. 16, 1929 - Oct 31, 2020

QUEENSBURY - Nicholas "Nick" A. Orsini II, 91, former long-time resident of South Glens Falls, passed away Saturday, October 31, 2020 surrounded by his loving family.

He was born Nicholas A. Orsini on January 16, 1929 at home in South Glens Falls, NY. He was the son of the late Nichola Orsini I of Popoli, Italy and Josephine Teresa (Nerone) Orsini of New York City.

In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by his brothers: Dante J. Orsini and Francis "Frank" Peter Orsini; sister-in-law, Eleanor (Stanton) Orsini and sister-in-law, Hazel (Deeb) Orsini. Nick is survived by two divorced wives: Angela and Eileen, both good and honorable women; a sister Helen Joyce (Jack) Reetz; daughters: Nina (ex son-in-law Steve) Joyce, Nicki Ann (Thomas) LaBriola and Josephine E. Orsini; a son, Nicholas A. (Marguerite) Orsini III; step-daughter, Stefanie; two grandsons: Michael and Tommy LaBriola; two granddaughters: Kristen and Kara Joyce; along with many nieces, nephews and cousins.

Nick cherished his friendship with his childhood friends: Murry O'Neil (deceased), Jesse Maffuid, Dick Dickenson (deceased) and Leo Kelleher (deceased), and recognize a special person, Nancy DiLaurenzio, and her daughters, Stephanie and Jamie, who were like daughters to him. The family would like to extend a special thank you to Donna Slack who took care of Nick and occupied a very special place and filled what would have been a void with a very special friendship in his senior years.

Nick graduated from South Glens Falls High School in 1947. He attended boys state during the summer of 1946 and attained the position of state senator. Nick was a good student and loved sports. In high school he lettered in football, baseball, basketball, and track. He was the quarterback and captain of the football team during his senior year. He played second base and batted first on the baseball team. He was a Life Boy Scout and attended Camp Wakpomonie and voted into the Order of the Arrow. He attended Colgate University on a War Memorial scholarship and graduated with a degree in Geology in 1952. He was one of seven of a class of 300 to attend his 65th class reunion in 2017. He was sent by the Air Force to St. Louis University from 1952 to 1954 to study seismology for his special assignment to the Air Force Technical Applications Center in the Pentagon. He was on the diving team at Colgate and received the swimming team varsity C in 1950. He competed against Army, Yale, RPI and Penn State.

He was a program manager during his 24-year career as an Air Force Officer retiring with the rank of Lt. Col. The Air Force was only five years old when he received his commission and took the oath of office of July 4th 1952. He worked on two main projects during his career. The first was as a project officer on a high altitude balloon project. This project called Moby Dick (Genetrix WS-461L) was responsible for the many unexplained unidentified flying object sightings during the 1940's and 1950's. The secret government project at the time was to develop, build and launch dozens of balloons to carry a camera payload to an altitude of 100,000 feet by riding the air currents over Russia to photograph military installations. Of the dozens of balloons launched from the aircraft carrier, the Windom Bay in the gulf of Alaska during the summer of 1958, none were recovered and three landed in the Soviet Union.

His second assignment was also secret. He was a contracting officers technical representative on contracts to design and build seismological equipment which would be installed around the world for the purpose of detecting clandestine, underground nuclear explosions and reporting such to the President of the United States within 30 minutes of such an occurrence. In the performance of his duties he traveled to 35 foreign countries and Antarctica and all seven continents and in doing so interacted with scientists and high government officials in the execution of his duties which included writing and negotiating government to government agreements with eight foreign countries. He worked on Operation Dominic to record seismic data from the atmospheric nuclear tests in the south Pacific during the 1960's. His report was secret and contained graphs that were used to determine the yield of Soviet Union explosions from the Semipolitense and Novaya Zemla test sites and Pakistan, China and North Korea. Those graphs are still in use.

Nick received the Meritorious Service Medal for a special assignment as a technical representative at the American embassy while stationed in Norway from 1968 to 1970. He was awarded the Joint Services Commendation Medal for his assignment to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon.

Upon retirement from the Air Force he worked for the US Geological Survey both in Menlo Park, California and as the Chief of the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory in New Mexico. He was responsible for an annual budget of two million dollars and supervision of 35 people. He also managed a 20 million dollar program to build and install nine seismic stations in Africa, South America and Antarctica.

In 1993 after he retired from the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory, he moved to Queensbury and had Tony Marciano build him a home in Rolling Ridge, Queensbury. He briefly worked as assistant Mayor of Glens Falls for the late Vincent DeSantis from November 1994 to May 1995.

Nick served as President of the Italian American Service Club of the greater Glens Falls area during 2005.

Nick was an accomplished private pilot acquiring over 800 hours in a Cessna 172. He combined his love of flying with aerial photography taking photos of the Grand Canyon, New Mexico San Cristo Mountains, Monument Valley Utah, historic sites like Fort Ticonderoga and other Adirondack scenery. His aerial collection was on display at the Glen independent living facility during 2017.

Nick wrote and published in thirteen copies an autobiography entitled "A Journey Through Life" for his immediate family, children and cousins. It contained a genealogical chart which served as the basis of an extensive and detailed family genealogy chart by brother Frank's grandson, Occhio Orsini.

Nick was self published author of the novel, The Green Vial. He also published several flying destination articles in the Flying Review magazine of the southwestern states pilots association. Nick also loved his motorcycle riding and trips with friends or alone notably one trip across the United States from California to New York and return to Albuquerque. In all of his many years of riding he covered 70,000 miles on six different motorcycles. Nick had many fond memories of the camping trip to see the midnight sun in Bodo, Norway, with Nina and Nicki Ann. Also the many gymnastic competition trips with Josie and the little league games with son, Nicholas, his many friendships and friends: Oyvin (deceased) and Vesla Brandtzaeg of Lillehammer, Norway; colleagues: Father Ramon Cabre (deceased) of the San Calixto Observatory, La Paz Bolivia, George Beasley, Pete Ward, Roger Borcherdt, Frank Pillotte (deceased), Carl Romney (deceased), Bob Engdahl, John Bailey, Romaine Fruge (deceased), Jim and Maurine Geherke, Don McGinnis (deceased), Hugh Carmichael and Guy Kuncir, Jon and Joan (deceased) Peterson, Bob and Hiroko Hutt and all those friends and colleagues at the Albuquerque Seismological Laboratory.

Calling hours will take place Tuesday, November 3, 2020 from 3 to 5 p.m. at Baker Funeral Home, 11 Lafayette St., Queensbury, NY 12804.

A funeral service will commence Wednesday, November 4, 2020 at 10 a.m. at Baker Funeral Home with the Rev. Joseph Busch, pastor of Church of Our Lady of the Annunciation, officiating.

A graveside ceremony with military honors will follow at Gerald B. H. Solomon Saratoga National Cemetery, 200 Duell Rd., Schuylerville.

Condolences and floral arrangements may be sent directly to Baker Funeral Home, or through www.bakerfuneralhome.com.