William Crandall

1939 - 2017

William Wofford Crandall

May 23, 1939 - February 14, 2017

William Crandall, 77, passed away on February 14, 2017 after a long, slow decline in health. While his family was deeply saddened by this, it also reminded them of what made Bill such a wonderful human being. Bill used his last years to joyfully pursue his longstanding hobby of photography, especially scenes of his adopted home along the McKenzie River in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. He also continued to love visiting and spending time with his eight grandchildren, watching his beloved San Francisco Giants, and telling puns. He had a unique ability to find the positive while faced with difficult circumstances.
It was along the fir and cedar tree-shaded McKenzie River where Bill, since his retirement spent countless days fishing with family and friends for wily native Rainbow trout, or what the local fly-fishers call "redsides." Bill and his wife Janet adored hiking in the Cascade foothills and alpine meadows, ever on the lookout for blooming wildflowers or animal tracks.
Bill was born in Houston in 1939 to parents Claire and Kenneth and a doting older brother Kenny. By Bill's tenth birthday, the Crandall family had moved to New Orleans. In fact, Bill maintained a lifelong affection for the Big Easy from these early childhood days in New Orleans. By high school, with his father once again moving to keep up with his work as a petroleum geologist, the family had relocated to the Bay Area suburb of Piedmont. Bill spent his college days at Stanford where at a social mixer, if legend has it right, he met Janet. Yet, like the McKenzie red-sides, Janet proved to be an elusive catch, manifested by how it took Bill a full year of courtship to win her heart. And yet that effort was a small investment for the priceless reward of having Janet as his side for a half century of marriage.
Bill and Janet had four boys, William Jr., Robert, John, and Russell. Bill's enduring legacy as a father is manifold. Above all stood his unwavering advice and advocacy for having his sons pursue what they love and excel in, not what impresses work colleagues or in-laws. He also demonstrated to his boys, day in and day out, that loving one's spouse and children unconditionally is one of life's greatest gifts and responsibilities. Bill also instilled a keen interest in foreign cultures and travel, which took Janet and him to the four corners of the earth. Bill was deeply committed to making the world a better place in some small way; generously supporting research for neurological diseases and a variety of environmental and educational causes.
This appreciation of the world was best expressed in his photography. In his later years, Bill worked tirelessly exploring the intricacies of nature, capturing intimate details of bees, flowers and landscapes; with the goal of inspiring us all to peer deeper into the natural world. We are blessed with his memory in the thousands of images he left behind.
Like many of his generation, Bill spent a fair amount of his career at a single company, in his case Bechtel Corporation. One upside of this career track was that it allowed Bill to work in all sorts of exotic locales including Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. Never one to pass up a family adventure, his work on a Bechtel project in Sydney, Australia allowed him and his family to live there for two years in the early '80s. After founding and running a San Francisco consulting company in the 1990s, Bill decided to leave the private sector to become a community college professor. Teaching is where Bill found his passion of sharing his business with students from all walks of life. Nothing made Bill happier to see his students, after taking his courses, starting their own businesses or transferring to pursuing careers in business In lieu of flowers, Bill's family kindly asks friends to make a donation to the College of San Mateo's public jazz station, KCSM.
A celebration of his life will be held on Saturday April 29th at 3:00pm at the First Presbyterian Church in Burlingame, California.