Arthur Reeve Dennis

Arthur Reeve Dennis passed away Thursday, July 21, 2022. He was born in Seoul, Korea on March 12, 1934 to Leslie Cecil ("Denny") and Katherine Bennighoff Dennis.

His father, a British citizen, worked for Standard Vacuum Oil Company, so Art had already been around the world by ocean liner by the age of two. He spent most of his youth living between Indiana, where his maternal grandparents lived, and Singapore, where his parents were stationed. In junior high school, he moved to Wisconsin to attend Wayland Academy for Boys, and it is there that he discovered his passion for playing the trumpet. High school took him back to Japan and his maternal roots.

After graduating from Yokohama High School in Japan in 1951, he boarded the Queen Mary in Liverpool and made his way back to the United States to attend Stanford University. There, he played trumpet in the Stanford Marching Band and was a member of Delta Chi Fraternity, earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. He then completed a master's degree in electrical engineering at UCLA and was one class shy of finishing his PhD.

He met the love of his life, Liz, in an elevator at Bullion and Griffith Engineering Firm where they both worked in Seattle. They married four months later and shared a great love story, celebrating 67th years of marriage in January.

Art spent his career making significant contributionsto the aerospace industry, including Project Mercury, the first man-in-space program for NASA. His invention, StarFix, was the first privately developed satellite navigational positioning system and was used in the oil and gas industry to track and discover oil in the ocean. Among his clients were Exxon and Shell.

Art is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Dennis; his children, Katherine and Peter Dennis, Peter's wife, Missy Dennis; and four grandchildren, Drew, Chris, Abby, and Kate. Art spent his golden years in the state he loved the most, Florida.His favorite quote was 'With sand in my shoes'.