In Memory of

Jeffrey

Lynn

Dukes

Obituary for Jeffrey Lynn Dukes

Jeffrey Lynn Dukes, age 74, died October 23, 2015 at his home in Ocean Shores, Washington. He was born to Dwight Ralph and Ruby Nell (Kelley) Dukes on August 20, 1941 on his grandmother Alice Irene (Bell) Kelley’s bed in North Baltimore, Wood County, Ohio. He attended schools in Detroit, Birmingham and Royal Oak, Michigan, Bremerton and Richland, Washington from which he graduated in 1960. He worked as an apprentice electrician at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton , Washington for two years followed by two years with the National Cash Register Company repairing their products. Then things go better when he was hired by the Boeing Company, starting out as a draftsman and after 32 years retiring as a Principal Technical Designer designing integrated circuits. He attributed his great success to investing time, money and effort into himself. He tried many things, which he called experiments, a lot failed but some succeeded and that drove him on. He read, he said “Yes, I can Do that”, and didn’t ask for permission. Some of the public places he studied after high school where: Pasco Community College, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard apprentice school, Olympic Community College, Highline Community College, South Seattle Community College, The College of William and Mary, and the University of Washington. In addition he took training at: The Boeing Company Flight School, Daisy Systems, Mentor Graphics, Cadance Systems, and more. While most of his Boeing work was for Boeing, he also created things for: USAF, USN, NASA, NOAA, MIT, JPL, the Mayo Clinic, Honeywell (Florida, Arizona and Minnesota) and others, like showing Fenwick Fishing Rods how to make them with graphite and an adjustable thigh bone made with Titanium for the UW Children’s Hospital. Proceeding him in death was his father Dwight Ralph Dukes, his mother Ruby Nell (Kelly) Dukes, his older brother Eric Ralph Dukes, his younger brother Dwight Calbot Dukes and his son Arthur Lynn Dukes, Surviving Jeff is his loving wife of 53 years, Diane Irene (Bruce) Dukes, daughter Kelley Lynn (Dukes) of Ocean Shores, Washington and sister Melanie Sue (Dukes) Heffner of Dallas Texas, plus five grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.