William Elmer Johnson aka Bill was 90 years old when he passed away. For the past few years, he lived at River Point Retirement community In Littleton, Colorado with his wife Betty. Bill died of congestive heart failure on Thursday February 5th in the Collier Hospice center located in Wheat Ridge, Colorado.
Bill was born on April 25th, 1924 in Detroit Michigan. His parents William O Johnson and Viola M Johnson were born in Pennsylvania and Michigan respectively. Bill’s grandparents came from Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Michigan. Bill had two siblings – Shirley and Frank, both deceased.
At a very young age, Bill became very interested in becoming an amateur radio operator. He attended Denby High school in ninth grade but his passion to become an amateur radio operator motivated him to apply to Cass Technical High school in Detroit Michigan. It was extremely competitive to get in but he was accepted and transferred there his sophomore year. After learning the morse code and being able to send the code at a rate of 10wpm, he was able to get his FCC license January 1941. WWII started and after completing the 11th grade at Cass Technical High school, Bill’s brother in law Cal (who was the chief aide in charge of building B 24 liberator bomber planes) encouraged Bill to apply for a radio operator job that entailed flying with pilots and flight engineers to do final inspections on planes in flight (The Air Force required that each plane completed a certain amount of flight hours before they would accept the planes). The flight department was managed by HP Henning who was recommended for the job by Jimmy Doolittle (later became a General in the AF) . The planes were not pressurized so standard gear included a chest parachute and an oxygen bottle strapped to your leg. Soon after he was drafted into the Army( WWII). After several assignments, the military noticed his radio background and was assigned to the 1924 Engineering combat Battalion. After several training courses, the first stop was Pearl Harbor. Their ship was part of a 100 ship convoy and developed engine problems and had to alter their course. He went to Manila instead. Truman authorized the dropping of the atomic bombs shortly before they were to ship to Japan. Bill was promoted to private first class, corporal and sergeant for providing radio communications for the battalion.
After WWII, Bill returned to Cass Technical High School and received his diploma. Shortly after, he was accepted into Lawrence Institute of Technology to study Electrical Engineering.
While in college, he went to a dance at the Vanity dance hall in Michigan. Just as Betty was leaving the dance hall, Bill tapped her on the back and asked her to dance. After dating 14 months, Betty and Bill were married on November 27, 1947 ( on a Thanksgiving school break from college). After graduating with an Electrical Engineering degree, he went to work for Ford Motor Company.
Bill had some very interesting jobs in his successful career. While working for Weltronic Corp and RCA in Michigan, all three of his sons (Bill, Bob and Gary) were born. While still at RCA, his group was merged and transferred to New Jersey. Eventually, he ended up in the RCA Astro division, they designed and manufactured satellites and related systems. Some of the more interesting projects included a ground station design to control a classified satellite that took pictures over Russia and down loaded the images when it passed over the United States. While living on the east coast, they enjoyed many trips to New York, Washington DC, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. His daughter, Maryanne was born during this time in New Jersey. Bill eventually wanted to re locate back to Michigan so he accepted a position with the Aerospace Division of Bendix. At Bendix, he worked on a project for NASA to produce a main frame data station and microwave package to be installed on the Moon. In the early 1970’s the NASA budget was reduced and Bendix finally went out of business. Bill proceeded to gain employment from Transportation Technology Inc., they developed a vehicle that used air levitation rather than wheels. Eventually in early 1970’s, TTI moved their headquarters to Denver which Bill chose to reside in Colorado ever since. TTI was sold to another company and Bill did not want to relocate back east. Bill had achieved his PE (Professional Engineering Certificate) and ended up going to work for the US Postal Service as a Power Distribution Engineer for their new Bulk mail system. Bill was in charge of making changes to the electrical control circuitry, power distribution system and the digital computer to ensure the systems ran efficiently and one of his many duties consisted of working with the Radio Engineer from the Forest Service if there were problems of interference with their repeater. After five and a half years with the Bulk Mail Center, he reported to work at the Regional office of the Forest Service. Bill was responsible for the two way radio communication systems in various Supervisor offices and Ranger districts. He finished his career with the Forest Service as the Communications Manager in Region two which had responsibility for six western states and 64 Ranger Stations.
After retiring at age 65, Betty and Bill bought 6 acres of land out in Elizabeth and had their house built. They lived there for twenty three years until they moved into Riverpoint Retirement Community two and half years ago.
Bill is survived by his wife Elizabeth ( Betty), his son William (Bill) & daughter in law Beth, his son Robert (Bob) and daughter in law Sherri, his son Gary and daughter in law Stephanie and his daughter Maryanne and son in law Dale. Grandchildren: Robert (Bud), Heddi, Jessica, Emily, David, Jake and Justin. Great- grandchildren: Travis, Molly and Allie.
Bill was a loving and caring husband and father/grandfather. His passion for many years was being an amateur radio (ham) operator. He made a lot of friends and contacts all around the world while being a ham operator. After Betty retired, she would accompany Bill on many of his Forest Service trips to the western slope, Wyoming, Kansas and Nebraska. After Bill was retired, he would make devices for ham radio operators and sell them on line and at Ham swap and shop gatherings. After they both retired, they travelled to North Carolina to visit Bill’s brother Frank several times, Las Vegas, California and several other states. For many years, Bill would always have a pocket full of candy and his grandchildren were well aware of this fact and would always go right to Papa’s pocket! Bill spent many of his last years researching the stock market and making several investments. Up until the end, Bill would be on his computer every day following the stock market. He wasn’t secretive with his investments, if he had success, he would supply the retirement community with stock tips! He will truly be missed!
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