John Lynch Ford's Obituary
John Lynch Ford was born on August 5, 1924 in El Paso, Texas to Spencer Ford and Theo Richardson. He passed away on September 12, 2014. He is preceded in death by his parents and his sister, Joanne Hallett. He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Mary Helen Scherr Ford; two sons, Christopher Ford (wife Betsy) and Patrick Ford (wife Cindy); one daughter, Mary Ann Barnett (husband Frank); five grandchildren, Alexandra Ford, Mitch Ford, Erin Barnett, Spencer Barnett, and Sean Barnett; and one nephew, Spencer Hallett. John moved often with his family as a child. He excelled in school, and when they settled in Abilene, Texas, he attended High School graduating in 1941 as Salutatorian at age 16. During his high school years he also ran a newspaper route and repaired radios. He also received his license as a Radio Amateur during this time. He served in the U. S. Army during World War II in the Pacific, achieving the rank of Technical Sergeant before he was discharged in 1946. In 1948 he graduated from University of Texas with a B.S. from the School of Electrical Engineering. He began his Engineering career with General Electric and soon was headed to Syracuse, New York, where he met Mary Helen Scherr, who was a secretary at GE. He accepted a transfer with GE to go back to Texas. John and Mary Helen married on October 21, 1950 and he brought her to a farm he had purchased in Weatherford, Texas. He spent 12 years at General Electric in several locations, including work at the Air Force Missile Test Center at Cape Canaveral, where he was instrumental in proposing and developing a new missile tracking system for the Air Force. After his work with GE, he joined Collins Radio in Richardson, Texas as a Department Head, where he had significant input on the Apollo program to put men on the moon. His department also won the first turnkey communications satellite earth station contract. For five years he was President of Omega-T Systems, Inc., which principally designed and built control systems for the large antennas used in communication satellite earth stations. Omega-T was merged into another company and he began work for E-Systems in Garland, Texas where he retired in 1990 after 19 years. During his time at E-Systems, he traveled to over 25 different countries doing systems engineering work on antenna systems. During his time with Collins and E-Systems, he also worked as a consultant with many other companies and he continued as a consultant after retirement for many years. In addition to his love of all things electronic, he loved animals. He had a special talent working with animals, particularly horses. He met Mary Helen when she joined a GE Horse Riding Activity, where he was serving as instructor. He also rescued many horses, training them and teaching his children the love of English Riding. A memorial service for John Ford will be held Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 2:00 PM at The Memorial Chapel at Restland Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Equest Therapeutic Horsemanship, www.equest.org. Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Restland Funeral Home and Memorial Park, 13005 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX 75238 at Restland Road.
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