Roy Mikko Alfredo Lautamo

1953 - 2024

Roy Mikko Alfredo Lautamo

November 1, 1953 - May 13, 2024

Fair Oaks, California - Roy Mikko Alfredo Lautamo, scientist, artist, husband, father, hang glider pilot, innovator, grandfather, and brother, passed away on May 13, 2024 at age 70 at the Sutter Roseville Medical Center near his home in Fair Oaks, CA. Roy truly embodied the Finnish mindset of sisu and beat the odds, living as fully as he could with anaplastic thyroid cancer for nearly two years.

Roy experienced the world as both a scientist and an artist. He could name the mountain ranges and the cloud formations and explain the geologic processes that shaped the land he explored on his countless family hikes and camping trips. But he could also appreciate the simple beauty of things, from a Gregory Kondos painting to the geese's daily commute, as he called it, flying over his house in Fair Oaks.

As a child he was always designing and building something, from a human catapult that he tested out on his little brother to a kayak that he built with his dad and took out for summer paddles on Lake Natoma. As an adult, he cruised the Sierra in a hang glider, sometimes of his own creation, or explored trails on his mountain bike around El Dorado County near the first home he and his wife, Patty, bought together in Placerville. He also enjoyed daily walks with the family dog (always a goofy, 80+ pound male) and reading the comics in the Sacramento Bee over several cups of black coffee. He always kept up to date on local and world news and religiously donated to environmental and liberal political organizations. Most recently he was a sailor, tinkering on his 26-foot MacGregor, the Osprey, in its slip on Folsom Lake.

Born in the town of Ruotsinkylä in Finland, Roy's father moved his wife and six children to Fair Oaks in 1959 when he was five years old. Roy picked up English with the help of his classmates and television (he couldn't believe that every family owned a T.V.) and soon acclimated to his new American life. He did well in his classes, especially math, was one of the best pole vaulters on his high school track team, and was one of those rare teens who could sit at the 'nerd' table one day and shoot the breeze with the jocks the next. He put himself through college, receiving both a BFA and a BS in biology. He then went on to complete a masters in molecular biology, covering the family's ping pong table with the pages of his thesis. In later years, he filled bookshelves with notebooks and papers of copious notes, from scientific brainwaves and stock market musings to his own cartoons and sketches as well as quotes and song lyrics that tickled his funny bone or satisfied his philosophical and insanely brilliant mind.

Roy launched his career as a research scientist at J&W in 1977 and over the years became a world renowned expert in chromatography, silane, and silicone science. He was deeply proud of his contributions to the field, especially pioneering the 3D printing of capillary columns. In the final years of his career he managed a research and development lab in Shingle Springs, CA as Director of Innovative Research Chemistries for Restek West. He "retired" in 2020 but continued offering his expertise to the field as a consultant.

Roy is survived by his wife of 40 years, Patricia Case, daughters, Amy Lautamo and Molly Ressler, granddaughters, Nora and Josephine Ressler, four siblings, Liisa Chandler, Anne Irigaray, Ninna Lautamo, Leo Lautamo, and his beloved nieces and nephews and their families. He is predeceased by his mother, Aino Anneli Lautamo, father, Aimo Erland Lautamo, brother Raine Lehtonen, and nephew Justin Lautamo Kosinski.

As Roy believed that "we all eventually dissipate in the quantum wave continuum," his family likes to think that he lives on in the oak trees by the river, in the dusting of spring wildflowers near the sandy shore, in the salmon swimming with all their strength against the current, and in the osprey flying above the rapids. Roy also believed that the best way to protect the world's remaining wild places was through land acquisition, and one of his favorite wild places was the American River. Donations in his memory may be made to the American River Conservancy at arconservancy.org, and he would have loved for anyone who knew him to take a walk down by the water in his honor.