Ioan Caton Paltineanu

Dr. Ioan Caton Paltineanu passed away January 28, 2025, at the age of 83, at home in Leesburg, Virginia, surrounded by his family.
To preface the story of his incredible life, here are what his daughter-in-law and grandson had to say, who have spent every day with him for the past five years.
From his daughter in law, Kasey Paltineanu: Ioan Caton Paltineanu carried an intelligence that one only learns about in history books. For years I eagerly sat doe eyed soaking in the knowledge he cheerfully shared. The depth of his intellect was vast; he taught me that you cannot move forward without knowing what came before. I once joked that all the time we spent discussing endless subjects was as if I was attending a private university. To my altruistic father-in-law, each day was a splendid gift from God and another chance to serve Him. The lessons I learned from him will continue to reveal themselves to me the entirety of my life. I will forever cherish our time together and miss him dearly. Above all, he was my friend.
From his grandson, Kip Paltineanu: My Grandpa was a great Grandpa. He used to tell me stories. There was an airplane he taught me about, called Hercules; I never knew the name of it. Whenever we would eat, he would say "I am hungry like a bear." After he would say "I ate like a pig". When I visited him, he would say "Hello, Hello". One day he yelled, "Momma please!" We asked if he needed something, he said "No, I just wanted to talk." He would tell us stories for hours and hours. When we went to Aruba, he was smiling so big. He had a lot of experience in his life of places he has been and things to do. I love my Grandpa, he was a good Grandpa.
Mr. Paltineanu was born in Campina, Romania. He led a fascinating life emerging from the depths of communism's repression to leading a rewarding career in the Washington area as a soils scientist, holding position in both the US government and the private sector.
His father, Caton Paltineanu, was an engineer and a well-known oenologist of Romanian wines. His grandfather, Ioan G. Paltineanu, studied at the French Naval Academy and served in the French Royal Navy before returning to his homeland.
Ioan was the youngest of five. Romania was under communist regime when he was born, and all his family's land was taken by the state. His two older brothers were educated engineers, but due to their family's opposition to the communist regime, their options were limited to factory jobs, taken to support the family, allowing their younger siblings to study. Ioan's father died when he was 11. Despite the many challenges he faced, Mr. Paltineanu completed high school and college with the highest honors. When he graduated, again due to his family's known opposition to communism, known as "bad dossiers," he was not granted access to a position at a research institute in Bucharest, rather he was sent to a work colony on an island, Insula Mare a Brailei, for three years where he and other dissidents (and prisoners) dredged a huge swamp in the Danube River to reclaim it for agricultural land, under very harsh conditions. The greatest (and only) benefit of those three years was being there with his first wife, Rodica. Together they had one son, Liviu Paltineanu.
President Nixon was working on a more open relationship with Romania at the time and opened research exchanges and scholarships for Romanian universities. Mr. Paltineanu qualified for an FAO Scholarship PhD program and came to the United States to study soil physics at the Department of Agronomy at Colorado State University, with visits to universities in Texas, California, and Georgetown university. He returned to Romania in 1971, which was under an even stronger Russian influence. His US PhD was not recognized, which required him to spend three years obtaining his second PhD in Romania.
After university, he obtained a job at an agronomic research institute (ICCPT) associated with the National Ministry of Agriculture and Food in Fundulea, Romania, where he began publishing scientific articles.
In 1978, Romania signed an exchange treaty with Iran, which provided Ioan the opportunity to teach at Tehran University for a year. He left right before the revolution in 1979.
Upon his return in 1979 he was relocated to the country's main research facility called Valul lui Traian in Constanta where he spent a year as the director. He then returned to the Fundulea Institute as director. In 1981 his first wife Rodica died in a tragic car accident leading him to return to Bucharest to be with his son, Liviu, and director of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. In 1983 he met his second wife, Nicoleta, whom he married in 1984. Their only child, Ioan was born in 1986.
In 1984 he was transferred to Baneasa Giurgiu Institute for Irrigation Reclamation and Drainage (ICITID) to lead the institute as director. The institute was established by the United Nations. He returned to the US several times as an experienced research team leader responsible for research and education contracts with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the US Trade Development Agency and later Quanta Consulting Engineers, a Fortune 500 company.
Along with the entire eastern bloc, Romanian communist regime fell in 1989. Due to his family's history of opposing the Ceausescu regime he was appointed by the National Liberal Party Secretary of State for Land Reclamation and Environmental Studies in 1990. In 1992, he was invited to the US by the University of Fresno for a visiting scientist position with a one-year term. The term was extended another year after which Mr. Paltineanu obtained a more permanent position at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center of the USDA in Maryland. After a few years, Mr. Paltineanu started his own scientific consulting company, Paltin International, and used it to make further progress in his field through symposiums held in the US and internationally.
He was a senior author and co-author of more than 120 scientific and technical papers published in the US and internationally. He was an invited lecturer and visiting scientist to the USA, the United Kingdom, Sweden and Germany, with professional and official visits to Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Morocco, Bulgaria, former Yugoslavia, Moldova, Egypt, Iran, and the former USSR.
Ioan was a man of strength and genuine love, known for his gentle spirit and heartfelt kindness. He lived a life rich in experiences and relationships, touching many with his wisdom, knowledge and humor. In his private life he fought for the property rights of many who were treated unjustly by former communist regimes with a strong voice for truth, justice, and respect. He believed in education, making certain his sons attended university. A true believer in the duty of every individual to learn and understand the lessons of history, he tirelessly passed on his knowledge and experience to his loved ones. Nothing compared to the joy he found around his family and friends. He loved with deep passion both Romania and his adopted country, the USA. He was eternally grateful for God's given life journey. He was blessed with a family that loved and valued him. He is survived by his sons Ioan and Liviu, his daughter-in-law, Kasey, and his grandchildren, Kip, Cristina, and Andrei.
A viewing will be held on Thursday, February 6th from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. at the Orthodox Church of St. Matthew in Columbia, Maryland, where he and his wife were parishioners for many years. Upon completion in 2007, the church did not have a bell, which, he purchased in France and donated. That bell will be rung by his grandson, Kip, on the day of his memorial. The funeral service will be held at the Orthodox Church of St. Matthew in Columbia, Maryland at 10 a.m. on Friday, February 7, with the burial to follow at the George Washington Cemetery in Adelphi, Maryland. Thank you to Slacks Funeral Home for their services.
Ioan will be deeply missed, but his legacy of strength, love, compassion, and generosity will continue to inspire all whose lives he touched.