Death of a Classmate - George “G.B.” Parks - 23rd Co.

George "G.B." Parks died May 14, 2019, at age 86, just shy of his 87th birthday, at Kaiser Permanente in Vacaville, with his family surrounding him.

G.B. was born in Santa Monica, California, the oldest son of George and Lelia Joy Parks.

After graduating from Polytechnic High in San Francisco in 1950, he attended the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where he was first in his graduating class in 1954. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.

G.B. served honorably for 20 years, logging 7,768 hours flying T-34s, B-29s, C-130s and C-141s. A Master's Degree was earned at Stanford University in 1958.

For two years, home was near Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, where G.B. was a Senior Project Engineer for Satellite Nav/Comm Systems.

In 1963, after training as an Assistant Air Attache, the family, now with four children, moved to Ankara, Turkey, where their fifth child was born. They returned to U.S.A. in 1965 to Travis AFB. G.B. had one year flying in the Korean War. Then, at Travis again, he was a Squadron Instructor Pilot, and did Aerial  Delivery Training through 1968. Then he was Jet transport Supervisory Flight Examiner, Operations Flight Examiner and Chief at Travis AFB Command Post to 1974, when he retired.

California Maritime Academy in Vallejo kept him busy the next 16 years teaching engineering maths. He then earned his Ph.D. at U.C. Davis in engineering in 1983. G.B. served as president of the Faculty Association, and retired as full Professor in 1992 from Maritime.

G.B. and his wife, Marna, worked on the family genealogy for many years, finding his descendants, and one was on the Mayflower of 1492.

G.B. and Marna raised their five children on a 52-acre ranch near Vacaville, California: Gary, Lorena, Jon, Howard and Semra, all learned, with the help of 4-H, about raising many kinds of animals and numerous other projects.

Grandpa G.B. will be missed by his wife, Marna; his four surviving children; 18 grandchildren; and 13 great-great-grandchildren.

He was preceded in death by his son, Jon, Feb. 9, 2019.

A memorial service for both G.B. and Jon will start at 10 a.m. Tuesday, June, 11, 2019, at the Sacramento Valley National Cemetery, 5810 Midway Road, Dixon, California.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Huntington's Disease Society of America, www.hdsa.org.

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