Miguel A. Halfhide

Michael Albert Halfhide, a Biomedical Engineer whose four decade career in the field included a long tenure at the leading global healthcare technology company, Siemens, and who also spent the later part of his work teaching and mentoring others in the field, died on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, at his home on Staten Island, where he had lived since 1978. He was 83. The cause was complications from dementia.

Michael Albert Halfhide was born on May 3, 1942, in the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. His mother, Carolina, was a homemaker, and his father, Albert Halfhide, was a customs’ official.

“Miguel,” as the bi-lingual Mr. Halfhide became affectionately known, grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, where, at an early age, he first discovered and nurtured his love for electronics, especially the then-new technology involving computers. In the early 1960s, Miguel immigrated to New York to complete his training and education in engineering technology at the renowned RCA Institutes. After completing his studies there, he worked at Bayer for several years, supporting maintenance and reliability of the company’s electrical infrastructure for its healthcare equipment division, before settling in at Siemens, where he worked in the field which he was passionate about until his retirement in 2012.

Miguel loved electronics and the intellectual curiosity, experimentation, and problem-solving that technology naturally implicated. When he was not ambitiously pursuing his life-long professional calling at Siemens, Miguel spent his free time building his own computers, experimenting at home with electronics, mentoring others in the field, and voraciously reading—a life-long pursuit of self-study, discipline, and personal improvement that migrated over time into many other subjects, including history, music, food, art, wine, and the quintessential American past-time, baseball. A died-hard Yankee fan, Miguel relished playing the guitar, was enthralled by the music of Simon and Garfunkel, Pavarotti, and Linda Ronstadt (accompanied by Miguel’s guitar and sung by Miguel in Spanish), loved the Opera (La Boheme, his favorite), collected art from upcoming artists in the Village, and cooked gourmet dishes, which he invariably accompanied with wines from Chile and Argentina, all shared—together with his sardonic wit and unforgettable laugh—throughout his life with his close family and friends. Grateful to his adopted homeland for the opportunities it gave him and his family, Miguel counted as one of his proudest accomplishments his naturalization as a United States’ citizen in his early 40s, followed by his generous, but always quiet, financial support for military and veteran causes close to his heart.

An intensely private and staunchly independent man who much preferred an evening alone with a good book, building exacting models recreating civil war battles, or a quiet night cooking at home on Staten Island with a close-knit coterie of family and friends to a night on the City’s active social/restaurant scene, Miguel married only once. His wife, Maria Olga Betancourt-Halfhide, with whom Miguel shared his only child, predeceased him, upon her sudden and unexpected death in 1983. Miguel’s parents and two siblings—his brother, Frank Halfhide, and his sister, Helen Coons (Halfhide),—also predeceased him.

Besides his daughter, Carol Susan Halfhide-Torres, Miguel is survived by his grandson, Nicholas Torres, and his son-in-law, Jorge Torres.

A visitation for Miguel will be held Monday, May 12, 2025 from 4:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at Casey Funeral Home, 350 Slosson Avenue, Staten Island, New York 10314. A commital service will occur Tuesday, May 13, 2025 from 11:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at St. Peter’s Cemetery, 52 Tyler Avenue, New York, NY 10310.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Bob Woodruff Foundation, a charitable organization focused on investing in the next chapter for veterans, service members, and their families providing support for things like education, housing, and employment.