Ryan Cross

1984 - 2017

Ryan Cross

Seattle, WA

1984 - 2017

It is with great sadness that we announce the sudden passing of our firstborn son, Ryan Neale Cross, at the age of 32. Ryan was the victim of a vehicle collision in Seattle, Washington, on Thursday, January 5, 2017. This tragic accident occurred while Ryan was doing his usual morning commute to work as a pedestrian, standing on a street corner, awaiting the signal to safely cross the intersection.

Ryan was born to Richard and Shelly Cross on August 22, 1984, in Fort Worth, TX. while his father was beginning an Orthopedic residency program there. Ryan received the sacrament of Baptism on November 24, 1984, at Immaculate Conception Church in Sparks, Nevada, (where Richard and Shelly had married in 1977). Ryan was a bright, happy baby who talked very early and was soon joined by a brother, Brendan, born in January 1986. The two were inseparable! The family moved to Redding, California, in July 1989 where his father began an Orthopedic medical practice. Ryan attended St. Joseph Preschool and St. Joseph Elementary School from 1989 - 1994. The family attended St. Joseph Catholic Church where Ryan received the sacrament of Confirmation, First Holy Communion, and was an altar server for several years. Ryan was joined by another brother, Shanen, in February 1992 when Ryan was 7 ½ years old. Ryan and Brendan loved helping mom care for Shanen! Books, having been introduced to Ryan in the crib, were already a daily part of our family routine, but took on a new life as he learned to read for himself! Piano lessons, tennis, basketball, soccer, as well as adventure camps in Lake Tahoe, were all introduced at this time.

Shelly began homeschooling the boys when Ryan was 11 years old. This enabled Ryan to enjoy reading and learning at an accelerated pace, beginning courses at Shasta Community College at the age of 13. Ryan's love of languages developed, as he learned Latin, German, Spanish and lots of Japanese! The writings of J.R.R. Tolkien influenced Ryan greatly, as he was self taught in Tolkien's Elvish languages of Sindarin and Quenya. At age 17, Ryan was among the first graduating class in 2002 from Shasta Secondary Home School, receiving the President's Education Award for Educational Excellence. Ryan continued his education at Shasta Community College, while remaining on the Dean's List, transferring to UC Davis in 2003. In 2004 Ryan received the Golden Key International Honour Society award, graduating with Honors from UC Davis in 2006 with a Bachelor of Arts Major in Linguistics (being the top student in this class) and a Minor in Japanese.

Ryan began employment shortly after college graduation at the Circuit City electronics store in Sacramento, CA, later transferring to the Redding store and remaining there until the company went out of business in March of 2009. He worked briefly at the Redding, CA, Best Buy store, transferring in May 2009 to their store in Bellevue, Washington, and working in the computer department. Now residing in Seattle, Washington, Ryan applied to, and was accepted into the University of Washington's Computational Linguistics program where he attended classes and received a Master of Science degree (with Honors) in Computational Linguistics in June 2011.

Ryan was hired by Swype Inc., a software company which develops the "Swype" virtual touchscreen keyboard for mobile phones and tablets, as a Computational Linguist in June 2010, while in graduate school. After Swype was bought out by Nuance Communications in November 2011, Ryan continued with the company as a Software Engineer and Lead Computational Linguist until his death on January 5, 2017. His work entailed expanding the number of languages and improving the performance of existing languages for T9, XT9, and Swype. This involves Natural Language Processing and machine learning techniques along with linguistic research on a wide variety of languages.

Ryan enjoyed travel in the US and abroad in his 32 years of life. States included Texas, California, Nevada, Arizona, New York and Washington state. Countries included Canada, Mexico, Turkey, and his two beloved trips to Japan.

Our vacation home in Incline Village, NV, (Lake Tahoe) was always a favorite retreat, where Ryan enjoyed many holidays with his family, beach days, snowboarding, and mountain hikes. Ryan loved hiking with friends and family in the beautiful Pacific Northwest as well, and embraced all that Seattle had to offer with great enthusiasm! Movies, both domestic and foreign, appreciation of cuisine from a variety of cultures, experimentation in the kitchen, sampling fine wines and imported beers, being a coffee connoisseur, visiting museums, hosting board game and book club nights, and most especially reading lots of books were all passions of Ryan?s! Having 1000+ books he wished to read listed on his GoodReads profile, Ryan read 56 books in 2016 with genres including Science Fiction and Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Philosophy, Science, Linguistics, History and Comics. So many books, so little time.

Ryan Neale Cross is remembered with an enormous amount of pride and love by his parents Richard and Shelly Cross of Shasta, CA, & Incline Village, NV, brother Brendan (Tacoma, WA), brother Shanen (Santa Barbara, CA), Grandfather and Grandmother (Louis and Patricia) (Sun Valley, NV), Uncle Greg Gutenberger (Theresa) (Sun Valley, NV), Aunt Dana Cowen (Rick) (Reno, NV), Uncle Louis Gutenberger (Sun Valley, NV), Aunt Mary Holt (Vince) (Sparks, NV), Aunt Amy Gutenberger Smith (Chuck) (Reno, NV), Uncle Chris Cross (Pam) (Overgaard, AZ), Uncle Ron Cross (Sparks, NV), Aunt Mary Ann Barnes (Joe) Las Vegas, NV, cousins: Shawn, Chris, Alyssa, Briana, Andrew, Miranda, Taylor, Gabriella, Veronica, Miranda, Jodi, Lindsey and Melanie; 2nd cousins: Lylah, Isabella, Avah, Scarlett, Violet, Kassidy, Brody, Madison and Everett, and dear friends: Jeff Kahn, Elias Lugman, Joshua Hou, Rosanna Sze (Seattle, WA), co-workers Ethan Bradford, Annie Becker, Margaret Magnus, and so many, many more loving friends and co-workers.



Preceded in death by Helen Cross (Grandmother) and Robert Cross (Grandfather) Sun City West, AZ, & Reno, NV, Mike Cross (Uncle) Reno, NV, and Wilma Gutenberger (Great Grandmother) Sacramento, CA.

Ryan included the following quote on his GoodReads profile: "The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places." - Ernest Hemingway

We are heartbroken to have lost such a brilliant, kind, compassionate, enthusiastic young man so abruptly in the prime of his life. Ryan would want us to be happy and go on living the best possible lives that we can.

God Bless you, always, Ryan! You will remain in our thoughts and hearts forever!

Funeral services will be held at St. Joseph Cemetery in Redding, CA, at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, February 4, 2017.

A Loving Remembrance of Ryan will follow at Riverview Country Club in Redding, CA, from 3:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Please join us in remembering an exceptional human being!

Please sign the guest book at http://obits.redding.com