REVISION 8/19/14 - below is the text to be published in the local newspaper after my death - the 35 word version of the obituary is published for free and the longer version requires payment in advance: (See Corvallis, Oregon Gazette-Times Obituaries)
SHORT VERSION LESS THAN 35 WORDS: Thomas Kraemer, [Age], of Corvallis, died [Month] [Day], [Year] and is survived by his spouse Kim Kraemer who he married in 1978. Kraemer's estate will be endowing the OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund.
LONG VERSION of Obituary for Gazette-Times Newspaper requires payment in advance FINAL DRAFT Aug. 19, 2014 - 334 words
Thomas Kraemer, [Age], of Corvallis, died [Month] [Day], [Year] and is survived by his spouse Kim Kraemer, who he married in 1978, and sister Carol Kraemer.
Kraemer's estate will be endowing the Oregon State University Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund for Research concerning humans or animals with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity in honor of a German medical doctor whose research library and books were publically burned by the Nazis in the 1930's.
After early retirement due to an ischemic stroke, Kraemer conducted independent research that documented the connection between Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld (1868-1935) and former Oregon State University Professor W. Dorr Legg (1904-1994), which he published on a peer-reviewed City University of New York Website and stored permanently in the OSU Scholars Archives.
After receiving a Bachelors and Master's Degree in electrical engineering and computer science from Oregon State University in 1977 and 1978, Kraemer worked for Hewlett-Packard over the next three decades where he helped design HP's first portable computers and partnered with Intel to design the first Ethernet hardware necessary for connecting to the internet.
Kraemer also designed the world's first smart phone by combining Motorola and Bell Labs' then new cell phone technology with HP's handheld computers, which he showed to Apple Computer's Founder Steve Jobs shortly after HP cancelled his project in 1982.
In the early 1980's, Kraemer witnessed the invention of HP's first inkjet printer, originally designed to meet the needs of HP's battery powered calculators and portable computers, and his history of its development was published by a major mass-circulation magazine, "American Heritage Invention & Technology," in their Spring 2001 issue as "Printing Enters the Jet Age, How today's computer printers came to eject microscopic dots with amazing precision."
Starting in the 1980's, Kraemer led advanced research and development programs at HP to connect all of HP's electronic instrument products via an object-oriented software graphical user interface to the internet, for which he and his team were granted U.S. Patent Number 5,883,639 dated Mar. 16, 1999.
(Quoted from Thomas Kraemer Obituary published in the Corvallis, Oregon Gazette-Times, Day, Month, Year published in the Corvallis, Oregon Gazette-Times Obituaries)
See my previous posts:
- History of HP inkjet printers in American Heritage Invention & Technology (2/19/12)
- U.S. Patent number 5,883,639 dated Mar. 16, 1999 (9/24/14)
- Patent laws being abused by Apple iPhone claims (8/28/12) - Steve Jobs was shown HP, Motorola and Bell Labs' cell phone handheld computer technology
- OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Agreement (1/4/12) endowment planned by Kraemer's estate
- Gay marriage discussion in 1953 vs. 1963 and today (12/16/13) - about W. Dorr Legg and also see the following posts
- Gay Oregon Professor 1935 (12/16/06)
- FBI files on gay OSU professor 1956 (7/7/10)
- Dorr Legg OSU archives records 1935-1942 (7/31/10)
By a strange coincidence, when I start writing the above obituary, I went to the newspaper's site to read their policies and noticed that the first engineer I was assigned to work with at HP had just died: Ronald Ward Keil," gazettetimes.com posted Aug. 16, 2014 (long version also see short version "Ron Keil," gazettetimes.com posted Aug. 15, 2014). He was the type of professor students loved to get for a class because he had real industry experience and not just theoretical knowledge. I learned much from his experience.
END OF REVISION 8/19/14
In the event of my death, I have written my own obituary for my family and friends:
Thomas Kraemer [insert year of birth and death] was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and grew up in Edina, Minnesota. He is survived by Kim Kraemer, who he married in 1978, and his sister Carol Kraemer of Windsor, California. Kraemer graduated in 1977 and 1978 from Oregon State University with a Bachelors and Masters Degree in electrical engineering and for the next three decades worked at Hewlett-Packard until his early retirement due to illness. Kraemer is the founding benefactor of the Oregon State University's OSU Foundation Magnus Hirschfeld Fund Agreement (1/4/12), which funds educational, scientific and ethnographic research activities at OSU concerning humans or animals with a minority sexual orientation or gender identity.
Thomas Kraemer started his professional engineering career in the Corvallis, Oregon Hewlett-Packard calculator research and development lab where he witnessed the invention of the first inkjet printer, which was originally developed to be used with battery-powered calculator products. Thomas Kraemer was an engineer or manager at Hewlett-Packard divisions in Oregon, Washington, California and Colorado from 1978-1998 and worked on many calculator, computer, network and instrument products.
Thomas Kraemer's grandfather Elmer O. Kraemer was a renowned PhD chemist, nylon, and synthetic rubber pioneer who worked for DuPont and as a chemistry professor in Sweden, Germany and the U.S. His father Herbert Kraemer was also a PhD chemist who worked for General Mills in Minneapolis during the time when the food industry was pioneering the use of processed soybeans as a healthy protein substitute in processed foods.
PHOTO: magazine article by Thomas Kraemer, "Printing Enters the Jet Age, How today's computer printers came to eject microscopic dots with amazing precision," American Heritage Invention & Technology, Spring 2001, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 18-19 (For more see blog post: History of HP inkjet printers in American Heritage Invention & Technology, Spring 2001)
