Lewis_Gordon_26 February, 1941
T. Gordon Lewis died on November 2, 2009 at Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Hospital in Denver after a long and hard fought battle with Leukemia (AML). His passing was peaceful and family surrounded him. A family visitation was held on Thursday, November 5 at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at 4655 Table Mesa Drive, Boulder Colorado from 7-8:30 p.m. A funeral was held at the same location on Friday, November 6 at 11:00 a.m. followed by burial at Green Mountain Cemetery.
Gordon was born in Boise, Idaho on February 26, 1941, to Theras Evans and Catherine Lewis. His only sibling was LaRee Lewis Sperry, 8 years his junior. They were reared in Malad, a small farming community in Idaho. He graduated valedictorian from Malad High School in 1959 and attended Brigham Young University on full academic scholarship. Gordon graduated in 1967 from BYU with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering, first in his class. An award for most outstanding student from the College of Physical and Engineering Sciences was presented to him in 1967. He served a two-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1960-1962 in the Great Lakes Mission (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio). Gordon went on to receive a MSEE (Masters’ of Electrical Engineering) from Stanford University in 1968. Additional graduate work was done at New York University and Colorado University.
On July 10, 1964, he married Kathleen Crane of Payson, Utah for Eternity in the Salt Lake LDS Temple. They are the proud parents of Rand Gordon Lewis (Leslie) of Broomfield, Colorado, Laura Lewis of Boulder Colorado, Sara Lewis Stratford (Travis) of New York and Carrie Lewis Denham (David) of Denver, Colorado. Gordon was a beloved grandpa to his grandchildren: Tanner, Christian, Mason and Sydney Lewis: Scout, Calder and Crosby Stratford: and Brig Denham. He will be greatly missed.
His career began at AT&T Bell Telephone Laboratories in Holmdel, New Jersey in July of 1967. Early work focused on the design of exploratory customer switching systems. He transferred to the new Denver, Colorado Labs in August 1969. His name was on 12 awarded US patents for work done in the field of telephone communications. Most of his 32 year career was spent managing teams doing hardware and software development of PBX and voice storage systems. One such PBX developed by his team and three others in now on display at the Smithsonian Institute. In 1999 he retired as Chief Technical Officer of the Business Communications division of Lucent Technologies (now Avaya) in Westminster, Colorado and many other US and international locations.
As an active member of the Boulder congregation of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints he held many leadership positions including serving as Bishop of the Boulder First Ward for six years. His favorite role was teaching the adult Gospel Doctrine class, and he spent many hours serving and teaching as a youth leader.
Gordon’s hobbies included vegetable gardening, crossword and Sudoku puzzles, reading, running, skiing and hiking. His first love was golf. Travel also featured highly in his life, both of business and pleasure, often accompanied by his wife. He was well organized, reliable, an excellent teacher, a clear and concise communicator, an outstanding public speaker, and ultra-reliable. A quote that best captures his personality is “Say what you’ll do and then do what you say.”