Kevin Bruce Albaugh

  Kevin B. Albaugh, Ph.D., an engineering executive who combined technical expertise with business acumen and management skill, died of cancer Oct. 6 at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, WA. He was 57 years old. Dr. Albaugh was a polymath who led development of engineering processes in nanotechnology, semiconductors and industrial gases, but he was also noted for his people skills including team-building, development, and his business savvy in strategic planning and market development. Most recently, he was director of technology at Honeywell International Inc.'s Electronic Materials division in Spokane. He spent 15 years with the industrial-gas supplier Praxair Inc., including two in Shanghai as director of start-up applications in China. He also worked for Praxair as R&D director in specialty industrial-gas products for the semiconductor industry. He began his career at IBM in Burlington, VT, hired upon graduation from Clarkson University in 1980 with an undergraduate degree in chemical engineering. He received his doctorate from Clarkson University in 1987. His dissertation "Mechanisms of Anodic Bonding" examined the bonding of silicon to glass under high electrical fields. His research has been cited numerous times by engineers working on problems ranging from nanotechnology to the space program. His professional activities included several advisory board positions at SEMATECH, Clarkson University's Center for Advanced Materials Processing, and the Chemical Engineering Industrial Board at the University of Arizona. He was a member of the American Chemical Society, Sigma Xi, and the National Society of Professional Engineers. He was born in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1958 and graduated from Cortland (N.Y.) High School in 1976. At Clarkson, he was a member of Beta Tau fraternity. He was an avid ham radio operator (NB1A), earning his first license at 11 years old. In Spokane, he was active in the Kamiak Butte Amateur Repeater Association. He is remembered as a jovial, kind, and relentlessly curious person of eclectic tastes and passions. He could tie a clove-hitch or a bowline, bait a hook, clean a trout, tap out Morse code, master a joke, clean a shotgun, play the viola da gamba, and sing in a big, clear bass-baritone voice, as musically at home in a barbershop quartet as in a Bach chorale. He was unfailingly collegial. He never forgot a friend. He lived for his family. He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Cheryl Cade Albaugh, and two children, Kurt and Quinn Albaugh. He is also survived by his mother, Carolyn D. Albaugh, of Binghamton, N.Y.: and three sisters, Nancy (Joe) Sharkey, of Tucson; Patricia Albaugh (Bob Meldrim), and Kathryn (Don) Gitto, both of Binghamton, and many nieces and nephews. Services will be October 24, 2015, at 11 AM, at the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, 15319 E. 8th Ave. Spokane Valley, WA. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Episcopal Church of the Resurrection, PO Box 14771 Spokane, WA 99214, or the National Brain Tumor Society.