Eugene P. Santorini

SANTORINI EUGENE PAUL SANTORINI (Age 86) A retired professional engineer, died on January 29, 2011 at Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, MD, of pneumonia. Mr. Santorini was born on March 15, 1924 in Athens, Greece. His mother was a German foreign-language teacher, and his father a prominent Swiss-educated Greek engineer and physicist. Mr. Santorini graduated from the German School of Athens and received a diploma in architecture in 1948 from the National Technical University of Athens. After serving in the Greek Navy, he took his first job with the Athens office of the New York-based engineering company Knappen Tippetts Abbett McCarthy, where he worked for three years. Encouraged by an American colleague there, Mr. Santorini decided to seek his fortune in America, emigrating to Canada in 1954 and to the United States in 1956. Mr. Santorini's first years in the United States were spent in Columbus, OH, and New Haven, CT. In 1963, he settled himself and his family in the Washington, DC area. From 1967 on, he lived in Bethesda, MD. A member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, he was employed in senior positions as principal engineer or consultant by a number of U.S. engineering and construction firms, including the Bechtel Corporation. His work took him around the United States as well as to Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Germany. Mr. Santorini was the project engineer for the 1976 rehabilitation of the port of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in which the existing wooden structure was replaced with concrete. Although the 2010 earthquake severely damaged the port and the furthest portions of the dock collapsed into the sea, the warehouses and containers stacked in the populated part of the port did not collapse onto any workers, and the port reopened eight days after the earthquake first hit. After more than 30 years as a professional engineer, Mr. Santorini retired in 1990. Mr. Santorini was an avid photographer whose work, including coverage of the 1968 Washington, DC riots, appeared in German magazines in the mid-1960s. He enjoyed collecting and experimenting with different high-end cameras before trading them in for the next model. An avid reader, he disregarded normal waking hours when in the grips of a favorite book. He was fluent in Greek, German, French, and English and had a working knowledge of Italian. In the first years after his retirement, he devoted himself to compiling a comprehensive family tree, the earliest entries of which reach back to the mid-1600s. In connection with this project, he traveled extensively to acquire primary historical sources and to interview extended family members. The result was a document the size of a dining-room table. After completing the genealogy project, Mr. Santorini wrote a two-part biographical essay focusing on his decision to emigrate and make good in America. The essay was published in the International Herald Tribune and, in a fuller version, in the Greek newspaper "I Kathimerini." From childhood on, he loved classical music. Another lifelong interest was modern European history, especially of the 20th century. He was a member of the German-American Historical Institute and the Goethe Institut, and he attended the German Lutheran Church of Washington, DC. Mr. Santorini is survived by his wife of 54 years, Hildegard née Isbrecht, of Bethesda, MD, their three children, Beatrice Santorini of Philadelphia, PA, Eva Santorini of Silver Spring, MD, and Christine Biser, of Frederick, MD, his son-in-law, Chris Pestalozzi and grandson, Lukas Pestalozzi, both of Silver Spring, MD, his brother-in-law Karl Isbrecht, of Flagstaff, AZ, his stepmother, Anastasia Santorini, and his cousin Valia Spanidou, both of Athens, Greece. Mr. Santorini donated his body to the State Anatomy Board of Maryland. A memorial service is being planned for mid-March.