Howard B. Demuth

Howard was born in Junction City, KS, on June 22, 1928, to Frances E. (Honey) Pierce Demuth and Howard Bundrum Demuth, and he spent his early childhood in Ellsworth, KS. His early memories were of small-town life, the Dust Bowl, and the Great Depression.

He moved to Boulder, CO, with his mother, Honey, and his older brother, Hal, at the age of 10. His life was full of adventure and pranks, tagging after Hal, and hanging out with and playing chess and tennis with young University of Colorado men from the fraternity next door. These years were sprinkled with summer trips to Palmer Lake, chemistry mishaps in the basement, and then the upheaval of early World War II.

Howard was very intelligent and curious to know how things work — in fact, it was hard to keep up with him much of the time. He attended Boulder High School and then the University of Colorado, from which he graduated early with a degree in Electrical Engineering in 1949. He played varsity tennis in both high school and college.

Howard loved to ski, hike, fly fish, sail, birdwatch, and play bridge. Mark Twain, Robert Frost and Thoreau were among his favorite authors. He played competitive tennis with vigor and was a lifelong tennis fan; one highlight was attending the US Open in 2008. He was an avid

jogger, beginning in the mid-1970s, when he purchased several cases of his favorite Tiger Cortez shoes, which lasted him for several decades. He ran his first marathon at age 68, a year after open-heart surgery.

Born with curly blond hair, Howard was bald by the age of 24. He was rarely seen without his signature hats—fedoras, caps, or outback hats, as dictated by the activity and weather.

He loved puns and practical jokes. He had a zest for life and frequently sought out new challenges and adventures. He delighted in being a grandfather and was always ready to brag about his family.

Howard began his career in the new field of computer engineering at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in Los Alamos, NM. In this “dawn of electronic computing”, he was a member of the original and memorable seven-man group that designed and constructed one of the world’s first electronic computers—the MANIAC. This auditorium-sized mathematical computation machine utilized “ruggedized” double triode vacuum and cathode ray tubes, resistors, and diodes—long before transistors and integrated circuits were even imagined--to perform precise, extensive calculations of the thermonuclear process.

It was here, in Los Alamos, that he met his future wife, Ruth Louise Bull, on a blind date. They were married in 1951.

Subsequently, Howard earned his PhD at Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, in 1956 for groundbreaking research in electronic data sorting. The introduction to the IEEE Transactions on Computers in April 1985 stated: “Demuth’s pioneering 1956 Ph.D. dissertation ... helped shape the field of computational complexity.” Daughters Katherine and Kimberly were born in Palo Alto.

Howard then moved his family across the country, and he worked from 1956 to 1958 on character recognition at the IBM Research Laboratory in Yorktown Heights, NY. Daughter Mary was born during this time. The family dog, Andy, was acquired in New York; like Mary, he continued to delight and frustrate Howard for years thereafter.

Howard returned to Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in 1958. He worked on advanced computer simulations of nuclear reactors and their behavior; Los Alamos was the leader in that field. He also played a key role in the development of high-speed interactive graphics systems, a cutting-edge technology at the time.

In Los Alamos, son Hal was born. The young Demuth family skied in the winter and backpacked in the summer. Howard continued to enjoy playing tennis. He taught computer science classes at University of New Mexico’s Los Alamos Branch and at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, IN, before retiring from LANL.

From 1979 to 1985, Howard was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, OK. While there, he furthered his research and taught advanced computer architectures, especially in the area of computational sorting. From 1985 to 1998, he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Idaho, Moscow, ID. There, he helped found AHA Products Group, an integrated circuits company. Additionally, he founded and led the development of the Neural Network Toolbox for MATLAB, an AI software package, which today remains an industry standard. Howard wrote the text, Neural Network Design, with his University of Tulsa colleague Marty Hagan.

Howard spent research and respite sabbaticals at exotic locales like the University of Colorado Boulder (1963–4) and the University of Hawaii (1968–9). While in Hawaii, he learned to sail the family catamaran and captained camper trips to explore several islands. In addition, he took sabbaticals in San Diego, CA (1991); Christchurch, NZ (1994), where he hiked the Milford Track; and Toulouse, France (2006), where he stayed on “American time” so he could continue his work while he explored Europe’s castles, churches and local cuisines.

Howard retired from University of Idaho in 1998 and returned to Boulder, CO, as an adjunct professor of electrical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, teaching neural network courses in person and online.

In October 2001, he married his partner of many years, Joan Pilgram. He continued to update the Neural Network Toolbox and Neural Network Design. He continued to travel and enjoy a full life.

Howard is predeceased by his parents Honey and Howard; by his brother, Hal Pierce Demuth; by the mother of his children, Ruth Bull Demuth; and by Joan Pilgram.

He is survived by his four children, Katherine (Mark Johnson) of Sydney, Australia; Kimberly (Fred Glick) of Mercer Island, WA; Mary (Anthony Sandoval) of Los Alamos, NM; and Hal (Monette) of Conifer, CO; as well as many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Services will be held at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, please consider a contribution to one of Howard’s favorite places, The Colorado Chautauqua in Boulder, CO, in Howard’s memory.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.cristmortuary.com for the Demuth family.