Thomas Edward Pelton

Tom Pelton  After a year-long battle with cancer, Tom passed away surrounded by family on December 19th at age 89.  Thank you to the team at RJH Hospice as well as Grace and other staff at Serenity Home Care who were amazing at making this journey the best it could have been.   He will be greatly missed by his family, including his wife Frances, and his children: Doug (Jaye), Brad (Teresa), Tim (Leslee), Kristy (Richard), Lori Ann (Dan), Charlene (Bernie), and numerous grand- and great-grandchildren.  He was predeceased by his son Gil (Giselle) and his first wife Vivian.   Born in Haida Gwaii (the Charlottes) to a family of loggers and fishers.  He went on to earn a BEng, MEng, and almost a PhD. During his engineering career he was involved in many projects including designing a floating bridge to Vancouver Island; being a technical expert for the Berger Inquiry; and participating in the design of pulp mills, pipelines, transmission lines, and many other structures.  He and his brother designed and built a balloon logging prototype and he explored and designed several alternative energy projects (wind, tide, geothermal). Later in his career he developed one of the first CAD programs for microcomputers. Tom also built two solid homes for his family. He was smart, well educated, and tenacious, and this kept him in constant pursuit of new ideas and technologies to research and master.  Among his many passions, Tom enjoyed photography, rowing, walking, travel, duplicate bridge, and Sudoku.  He had a competitive spirit and excelled in sports in high school, would happily be a pitcher in a pick-up game at a picnic, was a Life Master in duplicate bridge and in his senior years rowed more than a marathon a day for almost a year to finish his virtual trip around the world.  Tom was a kind, sincere, and generous man with a keen love for friends and family.  He was exceptional yet humble and he had a great sense of humor - always coming up with new jokes to brighten the conversation.