Donald Oliver Baechler
Donald Oliver Baechler died Nov. 19 He was 89 years old. Donald was born in Momence, Illinois and graduated from Wilmington (Illinois) High School in 1951.
He was a U.S. Air Force radio operator from 1952 to 1956 and was the lay Protestant leader of his detachment during his tour on Kumejima, an island off Okinawa, during the Korean War. He received a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering degree in 1960, from The George Washington University, a Master of Engineering Degree in 1964, and in 1968, passed written exams in circuit theory, communications theory, and computer science while in the Doctor of Science program.
He worked for Vitro Laboratories, ARINC Research Corporation and the George Washington University before joining Bellcom, a Bell System company, where he worked on the Apollo program doing systems engineering with primary responsibility for on-board digital computers. After Apollo, he worked for Bell Telephone Laboratories and successor companies for 33 years. He was a Registered Professional Engineer.
He was a contributor, co-author and/or author of several books on reliability engineering and digital computers. During the last decade of his career, he participated in industry forums that formed agreements concerning the operation of the public switched network of telephones. He was responsible for a far-reaching communication industry agreement called the Fair-Share Plan, which provides for any company who receives assignment of telephone numbers in the North American Numbering Plan to financially support the industry organization that collects, analyzes and disseminates that information to all who use it to handle telephone calls.
He retired in 1999, and began a series of volunteer and part-time work. This included driving for the Red Cross, recording math text books for Recording for the Blind and Dyslectic, substitute teaching at the Guilford High School, directing programs at Guilford Community Television, and actively participating in the Guilford Rotary Club where he was president, secretary, and webmaster.
He said that his two proudest achievements in life were his marriage in 1955, to his wife Sharon, and being the father of his daughter, Elizabeth, both of whom survive him. He is also survived by grandsons, Hunter and Chandler Warren.
His remains will be interred at the Abraham Lincoln National Cemetery in Illinois, near Wilmington, where he graduated from high school. There will be no public memorial service. In lieu of flowers or other expression of sympathy, the family prefers a donation to Three Square Food Bank in Las Vegas, Nevada.