Donald K. Reynolds, Professor, Engineer, Musician, Storyteller

Donald K. Reynolds, professor, engineer, musician, sailor and researcher in the field of electromagnetics, died of cancer in Palo Alto, Calif., January 18 at the age of 72.

Mr. Reynolds, professor emeritus of electrical engineering at the University of Washington, was born in Portland in 1919. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees in electrical engineering at Stanford University while playing clarinet in local dance bands.

Mr. Reynolds worked at Radio Research Labs at Harvard University and at the American British Laboratory in Malvern, England, during World War II. After the war, he attended Harvard to obtain his doctorate in engineering and applied physics.

Mr. Reynolds spent time at Stanford Research Institute but moved to Brazil and taught at the Instituto Tecnologico de Aeronautica. A fluent speaker of Portuguese, Mr. Reynolds served with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in 1968 and in 1972 was appointed science attache to Brazil.

In 1956 Mr. Reynolds moved to Seattle as Chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department at Seattle University. After two years, he joined the Electrical Engineering Department at the University of Washington where he taught until his retirement in 1984. He received awards for excellence in teaching.

"He was always telling jokes," said Rubens Sigelmann, professor at the University of Washington and former student of Reynolds in Brazil. "He was a very, very outgoing person. He was always very inventive and a very good professor."

Mr. Reynolds' research, funded by the National Science Foundation and other agencies, included work on antennas and satellite communications for medical emergencies in Alaska.

His research in ionosphere propagation led him to Antarctica in 1967 to work on one of the world's largest antennas.

During his eight years of retirement, Mr. Reynolds taught at Skagit Valley Community College and Foothill Community College in Los Altos Hills, Calif.

Friends say Mr. Reynolds was an accomplished sailor. He also taught courses on celestial navigation and, at the time of his death, was finishing a book on the subject and a humorous tract called "Harnessed Greed." The tract examined greed as the core of human motivation. Reynolds believed that greed, if harnessed, could be positive.

When Mr. Reynolds died, many of his friends cried, said his daughter, Priscilla Kellar, "because he was everybody's best friend."

He was also a noted storyteller. "As soon as he spoke everybody would sit down to listen because they knew he was a great storyteller," she said.

Mr. Reynolds spent half of his time at his home in Friday Harbor where he played clarinet in the Argyle Street Jazz Band and the Friday Harbor Community Band.

Mr. Reynolds is survived by his wife, Eva Reynolds; his daughters Nancy Reynolds of Seattle, Priscilla Kellar of Mountain View, Calif.; son Stephen Reynolds of Cary, N.C.; and two grandsons.

A memorial service is scheduled at the University of Washington Faculty Club March 6 at 4 p.m. Donations may be made to the Electrical Engineering Faculty Memorial Fund and to the Friday Harbor Community Band c/o Paul Dossett, 1040 Harbor View Place, Friday Harbor, WA 98250.