Gordon Dennis LASSAHN, Ph.D.

LASSAHN, SCHLICHTING, LINNET, HENRY, WORRELL, FONTANA, AUSTEN

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 5/10/2015 at 12:31:38

October 18, 1942 --- November 8, 2014

Gordon "Gordo" Dennis Lassahn, 72, of Idaho Falls, died at home Saturday, Nov. 8, 2014, from cancer. Gordon was born Oct. 18, 1942, in Mason City, Iowa. He was the second child of Mable Viola Schlichting Lassahn and Harold Paul Lassahn. He was raised in Klemme, Iowa. After he graduated from high school, he attended Iowa State University on a National Merit Scholarship, where he obtained both his B.S. and his Ph.D. in physics.

In 1965, Gordon met Pamela Linnet Henry, and they were smitten. They were married June 5, 1966, at the Little Brown Church in the Vale, in Nashua, Iowa. After completing their degrees, they moved to Boulder, Colo., where Gordon worked for the Rocky Flats plant. Nicole Elise and Jeffrey Karl were born there in 1971. The family was brought to Idaho Falls by the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in 1974. Here, in 1990, Price Lawrence Worrell became a member of the family.

Gordon worked on several of the site's reactor safety test programs that established the technical bases for the effective regulation of nuclear power. For the last years of his career, Gordon would work on a lot of non-nuclear defense and energy related research and development (R&D) conducted at labs on the site and at in-town facilities. Gordo was by occupation a physicist, applied mathematician, computer person and trouble shooter. He won two R&D 100 Awards, which are presented annually by R&D magazine and have been called the "Oscars of applied science." He first won in 2003 for the software he developed for Change Detection System. The second award was in 2008 for software associated with the Antibody Profiling Identification project. On Feb. 28, 2014, Gordon was inducted into the INL's Inventors Hall of Fame, honoring him as an INL inventor who had received five patents. Obviously a brilliant scientist, he didn't consider himself better than others and would never let anyone call him doctor. Some of his colleagues called him "Gordo the Goodfellow."

By nature, Gordo was a thinker and questioner. While quite reserved most of his life, he made an effort to reach out to people and to teach his children to do the same. Spontaneously, he provided little things to give pleasure to a new neighbor, co-worker or family member.

His children and grandchildren were his great joy, and he spent time with them reading, talking and especially teaching. A firm believer in independent thinking and actions and extremely principled in his life actions, he encouraged and nudged his family in the same directions. He always provided for his mentally ill mother, regularly sending her money when he was college even though he barely had enough to exist himself.

Gordon loved learning, books, music, canoeing, travel and cats. He valued intellectual curiosity thinking, questioning, seeking knowledge, examining what things mean and striving to see how things work and how divergent ideas fit together. He applied this curiosity to not just physical things, but also to people and cultures. He loved investigating new areas of knowledge, moving into astronomy after retirement. He especially valued independence, treasured gentleness and strove toward tolerance and acceptance of differences. He wrote frequent letters to the editor, reflecting his values of helping and being fair to his fellow man.

He got a kick out of dirty ditties and bawdy ballads. He would "dance" (never in public,) but he always called it a conniption, even "dancing" in the car resulting in some curious shaking of heads. Gordo always said he wanted a cement mixer to cope with cars that stuck their noses into traffic from a driveway. Anyone who asked him how he was would receive the standard response, "Peachy."

Gordo enjoyed creature comforts; he hated water, but loved canoeing. He would often read books starting from the middle or back and would get lost in reading the dictionary, coming up for air much later. He often programmed his computer wearing his black, wide-brimmed hat. He enjoyed wearing his brocade vest, particularly at the annual gathering of friends for the Christmas open house. He hated exercise, but did it regularly to keep his heart in good condition and improve his cholesterol count. He enjoyed a wide range of music, especially classical and Pink Floyd. He was known to crank up the stereo when playing Orff's Carmina Burana. For Christmas, he would decorate gargoyles with green and red ribbons.

Perhaps his most outstanding characteristic was his sense of humor in which nothing is sacred, but no one should be injured. He believed without a sense of humor and the ability to not take ourselves too seriously we would not have survived. He would play word games and tell stories and jokes until he tickled himself and tears would run down his cheeks. He never lost that sense of humor even when he was so sick. For example, he had a stroke that affected his speech. Lying in the ER, he began to regain some of his speech. He said, "I guess my days of singing opera are over," and as he pushed his walker past a friend, he quipped, "Just so you know, I don't pick up hitchhikers."

He is survived by his children, Nicole Lassahn (Yann) Fontana of Grenoble, France, Jeffrey (Kathy Austen) Lassahn of Portland, Ore., and Price Lawrence Worrell of Chubbuck. He is also survived by his grandchildren, Tristan Kelly and Rhys Worrell, and their mother, Crystal Worrell, of Pocatello. Gordon was preceded in death by his parents; his brother, Terry; and his sister, Joyce.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Henry-Lassahn Fund, Idaho Community Foundation, Boise, Idaho. This fund was established to help low income and disadvantaged children. Services will be held at 2 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 18, at Wood Funeral Home, 273 N. Ridge Ave. The family will visit with friends for one hour prior to Tuesday's services at Wood Funeral Home. Burial will be in Ammon Cemetery.

Post Register -- Idaho Falls, ID
November 16, 2014