Donald Machen

Donald R. Machen left this earth on Dec. 30, 2023, just after hearing the music of bagpipes while surrounded by his wife and children.  He was preceded in death by his parents, C. Raymond Machen and Myrtle Elizabeth Canny, and is survived by his wife of sixty-three years, Judy; son Jonathan (Paige); daughter Patty (Michael); four grandchildren; and a loving group of close relatives.

Born in California’s Bay Area eighty-seven years ago, he received BS and MS degrees in electrical engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and served in the United States Naval Reserve for two years. His tours with the navy on the USS Rowan, a destroyer, took him to Japan, Hong Kong, the South Pacific, Australia, the Fiji Islands, and Guam.

When Don returned to civilian life he worked first as a power engineer for Pacific Gas and Electric in the Bay Area. His most vivid memory was that of working at Bodega Bay on the coast north of San Francisco just as Alfred Hitchcock was filming his terrifying film there, The Birds. Don recalled driving through neighborhoods with hundreds of stuffed birds wired to the trees or perched on the rooftops of local houses.

While working on his master’s degree, Don’s interests changed from power engineering to control engineering. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory he became part of a group of scientists and engineers doing preliminary studies on methods of controlling a proposed new accelerator to be built, ultimately, at Fermilab near Chicago.

This research led to an invitation to spend a year at the international physics-research organization, CERN (the European Center for Atomic Research) in Geneva, Switzerland. There Don was part of a team developing the first computer-control system used at CERN—for the PS, a proton synchrotron accelerator.

From Geneva he came to Los Alamos National Laboratory to help develop control systems for the linear accelerator being built at LAMPF, the Los Alamos Meson Physics Facility, which became operational in 1972. During these years, Don was a member of an international committee, the NIM (Nuclear Instrument Modules) Committee, that set engineering standards for accelerator control systems.

Eventually Don moved from designing systems that controlled the magnets and beams of particles in accelerators to designing data-acquisition systems—systems that collected and recorded the data from the experiments done on accelerators.

During his time at LANL, Don and his family spent a year in England where Don was a visiting scientist at the Daresbury Science Research Laboratory. Later, in 1981, Don started his own business, Scientific Systems International, in Los Alamos.

Throughout his career at Los Alamos, Don was an active participant in the activities of his local chapter of IEEE, the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers. He was deeply committed to community service, serving over the years on Los Alamos County volunteer boards including the Planning and Zoning Commission, the Transportation Board, and the Environmental Sustainability Board. He was involved in the Future Electric Energy Resources Committee and the Bicycle Transportation Plan.

Don was a member and supporter of the Los Alamos branch of the League of Women Voters, and he also served five years as treasurer of the Los Alamos Concert Association. For many years he sat on the board of the East Park Pool Association as well as being the pool’s certified pool operator.

Don’s love of music focused on the Los Alamos bagpipe band he led for many years, the Albuquerque and Four Corners Pipes and Drums, founded in 1984. As pipe major, Don led the band at annual competitions at highland games in New Mexico and Colorado and was an accomplished solo bagpipe competitor. He especially enjoyed playing piobaireachd, the classical music of the highland bagpipe. He was active in the Western United States Pipe Band Association. And both he and Judy enjoyed many years of dancing with the Los Alamos Scottish Country Dancers.

Don was a long-time hiker and skier, activities his children incorporated into their own lives as adults. His family has fond memories of hiking trips, especially in California’s High Sierra, which started with burro trips (the burros carried the baggage, not the kids) when the children were young and continued with week-long backpacking trips as the years went by.  The family spent winter weekends on Pajarito Mountain, beginning back in the days when negotiating the T-bar presented one of the major challenges. Don was a familiar sight running errands in town on his motorcycle, and his daughter Patty remembers fondly his taking her to high school occasionally on the back of his cycle.

Don requested no formal services. He will be remembered as a man dedicated to family and community.

Please feel welcome to share stories, pictures, and condolences for the Machen family here.