John Paul Rundell

John Paul Rundell, age 75, of Castle Rock, passed away in his home on Tuesday, March 15, 2016. Graveside Services will be held at 1:30 pm on March 29th at Bear Cañon Cemetery, 397 South Perry Park Road, Sedalia, CO 80135. “Come as you are”. A reception will follow at the Rundell’s home in Castle Rock.

John was born on June 30, 1940 in Chatham, NY to the late Charles L. II and Helen Mesick Rundell. After growing up in Spencertown, NY where John attended a two-room school through eighth grade (indoor plumbing was provided in fifth grade) then bused to Chatham High School there were two years at the University of Maine studying Mechanical Engineering, playing piano with campus bands and joining Tau Kappa Epsilon. Discovering Ayn Rand he began architecture studies at the Syracuse University College of Fine Arts and finally received an Electrical Engineering degree (summa cum laude) from Southeastern Massachusetts Technological Institute, now part of the University of Massachusetts. During vacations and extended breaks between schools his piano skills got him work at the White Stallion Ranch (for dudes), Carson City (relive the days of the old west), and lots of nightclubs.

Life as a computer programmer began at General Electric Ordnance Department in Pittsfield, MA. In 1965 there were no computer science degrees so John was hired and given a two week programming class as much for his architecture and music background as for his engineering degree. It turned out he had a talent for this art and within the year was in Phoenix, AZ at the GE Computer Division as a system software programmer (they develop operating systems, compilers, etc.). While professionally serving on national standards groups like the Data Base Task Group of CODASYL and chairing the American National Standards committee on Data Base Language he also acquired a semisecret second life, shedding his suits each night for psychedelic face paint and roaring good times playing honkytonk piano, tuba and jug as part of the in-house band at Crazy Ed’s place. There was also company-paid travel to Europe, Japan and lots of really nice places in this country.

By 1968 he had traded in (most of) the nightlife for a wife, Carol, who came complete with a two-year old daughter, Stacy. Two years later when GE sold its computer division to Honeywell whose research center was in Waltham, MA, they moved to North Billerica, MA but were homesick and by 1973 were back in Phoenix with John at the same factory on Black Canyon Highway and Thunderbird Road, now labeled Honeywell Information Systems. Amy was born in 1974 and in 1976 they all moved to a house with an acre of land in Glendale, AZ.

After a 1978 divorce John moved to Broomfield, CO to join Storage Technology. There, after developing a compiler for the word’s first microprocessor controlled disk drive he changed fields and designed digital electronics for their first optical disk product, earning an award for eight patent applications and again participating in the American National Standards committee for the Intelligent Peripheral Interface. He married Donna in 1980. She and her teenaged daughter Terry moved to Colorado from Phoenix. Donna’s two teenaged boys, David and Eric, and John’s girls visited in summer and on vacations.

Storage Tech’s bankruptcy in 1984 led to a reduction in research funding so in 1986 John became Director of Engineering at Inlab, a small device programmer manufacturer. Two years later he formed Columbine Software, a one-man startup, to develop a low cost logic compiler. When the 90’s brought the attitude that employees were commodities, he accordingly became a self-employed short term (road warrior) contract engineer. Appearances were made at Aeronautical Radio in Annapolis (hardware diagnostics), Laser Magnetic Storage (disk controller firmware) and MCI (junk fax broadcast) in Colorado Springs, and two [forgotten] companies in Boulder (data compression) and Longmont (modems). Later he went full-time at Galileo (United Airlines) and Customer Insight Company (data base search engines) in Englewood finally ending at the Littleton office of LynuxWorks (real-time Linux drivers).

Since 1993, John and Donna have lived in a house of their own design overlooking the West Plum Creek valley in Castle Rock, CO. After John began early retirement at age 61 he landscaped their home, commissioned sculpture, backpacked Colorado’s mountains and canyons, made 18th century reproduction furniture, studied Afro-Cuban piano and took University of Colorado classes in art history and performance piano.

John is survived by his wife Donna, brothers James (Judy) and Dan (Christine) and their children and grandchildren. He has enjoyed a warm 35-year paternal relationship with Donna’s children David Hamm (Margie), Theresa Funderburg (Bill) and Eric Hamm (Patti Leggin) and their children (John’s grandchildren) Lauran, Joshua, Kenneth, Matthew, Jonathan, Nicholas, Kyle, and Allyson and great-grandchildren Keira, Courtney, Gabriel and Alayna. Also surviving are a daughter Amy Rundell (three children) and her half-sister Stacy Wingfield, to whom he was a childhood stepfather.