James Barry McCormick, age 82, of Tucson, Arizona, died March 18, 2022, peacefully in his home and in his sleep, of natural causes. Aerospace engineer, world traveler extraordinaire, deeply knowledgeable botanist, and beloved son, husband, father, grandfather, brother, cousin, and companion, Barry leaves behind his former wife of 35 years, Mary Margaret McCormick of Solomons Island, MD; their three children, James McCormick (Mindy) of Alexandria, Virginia, Stephanie McCormick (Stephen Smith) of Middletown, New Jersey, and Noelle McCormick Mykolenko (Danko) of Arlington, Virginia, as well as eight grandchildren, his brother Steven D. McCormick of Chicago, Illinois, and his long-time companion, Caryl Jones.
Barry was preceded in death by his parents, Robert Lee McCormick and Marjorie Chopin McCormick of St. Louis, Missouri; by his siblings Robert Lee McCormick, Jr. and Ann Weston McCormick, also of St. Louis, and his companion of ten years, Blair Kuropatkin.
Barry was born December 7, 1939 in Wichita, Kansas, the third child of Robert and Marjorie. He attended Chaminade College Preparatory School in St. Louis, Missouri, and received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering at St. Louis University after a brief period in the Army. In 2017, Barry was honored with the St. Louis University Alumni Merit Award for his long involvement with the University and its School of Engineering, including serving on the University Alumni Board and on the St. Louis University Institute of Technology Alumni Association (including as its President in 1969), and initiating the James Cronin Scholarship Fund.
Upon graduation in 1962, he joined the McDonnell Aircraft Company, later McDonnell Douglas Corporation, where he worked until his retirement in 1995, and again in 1996 when he was called back to work as the Manager of Advanced Planning on the National Aerospace Plane Program (NASP). During his tenure with McDonnell Douglas, Barry worked on a long list of high-level engineering and electronics projects, including Project Gemini, NASA’s second human space flight program, serving both at the headquarters in St. Louis and for many years at McDonnell Douglas’s facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California. Most notably, Barry pioneered digital flight test instrumentation for advanced performance fighter aircraft.
Barry’s interests and activities were legion. Among many other things, he was a dedicated and accomplished naturalist, with a particular interest and expertise in botany. Long active in the Angeles Chapter of the Sierra Club, Barry received that group’s Irene Charnock Service Award in 1998, and served as its Director of Development in 1999. Barry also served as President of the San Fernando Valley Orchid Society, and as a volunteer at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. His memberships in other organizations included the Southern Arizona Hiking Club, the Audubon Society, the Tucson Orchid Society, the American Birding Association, the Pima Air and Space Museum and the Tucson Botanical Garden.
Barry’s love of foreign travel evolved into a passion late in life, logging four or five major excursions annually during the years he spent with his companions Blair Kuropatkin and, following Blair’s death, Caryl Jones. He visited all seven continents and, as recently as three years before his death, Barry was hiking in the Himalayas and trekking after gorillas in Uganda.
Barry was a dedicated member of the Desert Dolphins SCUBA Club, and among his best loved travel activities were trips to some of the world’s most splendid SCUBA diving areas, along with his children, grandchildren, and much-loved fellow divers and travelers from Tucson. His circle of Tucson friends was a never-ending source of help, comfort, and companionship up to the day of his death.
As if this were not enough for one man in one lifetime, Barry was a gifted public speaker, McDonnell Douglas’s Toastmaster of the Year in 1966, and a long-time member of Toastmasters International, serving as Chapter President in 1996.
Private services and memorial gatherings will be held for family and close friends.
You are invited to remember Barry with a donation in his name to the Tucson Cactus & Succulent Society.
Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.eastlawnpalmsmortuary.com for the MCCORMICK family.
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