Gary King Klauminzer was born in Cleveland, OH on October 15, 1941. When he was in junior high school, his family moved to Lakewood, a suburb of Cleveland, where he made friends with a group of boys who loved practical jokes, and he proved to be an adept practitioner. Because high school presented few challenges, he spent his free time playing basketball with friends and devising pranks, which served as training for the jokes he would play on his future West Point roommates.
Gary met his future wife, Eleanor (Ellie) Hoke, on a tennis court when they were both 15, but he did not ask her out on a date until he could drive her to a movie himself in his own, rather beat-up, Ford. They became high school sweethearts who were able to maintain their long-distance relationship through college.
Gary did not come from a military family. His decision to apply to West Point may have been inspired by a cadet who visited his high school and by his yearning for an education that would present a genuine challenge to him. Whatever the reason, Gary applied, but because he was accepted as a qualified alternate, he made plans to attend a college in Ohio. Then came word from the Point, only two weeks before he had to report, and his future was changed from that moment on.
Although Gary did not make a career of the military, he valued his West Point experience enormously. Over plebe summer, he rapidly adapted to the demands of the Point and discovered, perhaps for the first time, that he thrived on challenge and pressure. Like all cadets, he was pushed to his limits and discovered that he could extend his limits. He discovered that he could concentrate intensely and accomplish a great deal in limited time. These abilities, uncovered and nurtured at the Point, served him well his entire life.
Gary’s roommates could laugh about his pranks—years later anyway. Don Siebenaler recalled a morning when he struggled to get to formation on time because Gary sewed his pant legs shut. And John Wyrwas tells the tale of how they got away with smuggling a small refrigerator into the barracks’ storage room. But they also noted that Gary was always willing to help with a tough math or science problem.
Upon graduation, Gary chose to serve in the Air Force. Three weeks after graduating, Gary and Ellie wed and then headed to graduate school at Stanford University, where Gary studied physics. Then came an assignment at McClellen Air Force Base, CA with the 1155 Tech Ops Sq., where he was not allowed to talk about his work with Ellie, and where his first son, Guy, was born. This was followed by an assignment at the NSA, where the family lived on post at Fort George G. Meade, MD, and where his second son, Scott, was born.
After resigning from the Air Force in June 1969, Gary, with family, returned to Stanford, where he earned a Ph.D. in physics in 1970. His academic advisor was Prof. Arthur Schawlow, the co-inventor of the laser.
Gary worked in the laser industry beginning 1972, when he joined the Molecton Corp. in Sunnyvale, CA. In 1980, he started his own company, Lambda Physics, a sales and service company for a German laser firm. And then in 1982, in Bedford, MA, he started Questek, a laser manufacturing company. In 1992 Questek was acquired by the Visx Corporation, which uses the Questek laser in its LASIK eye surgery procedure.
After 20 years in the highly competitive high-tech industry, Gary chose the lower-tech occupation of woodworking and started another company, Elegance in Wood, and created fine furniture in his home wood shop. Then, in 2000, he satisfied a long-term desire to teach and joined the faculty at Shrewsbury (MA) High School, teaching mathematics until his retirement in 2007.
After they retired, Gary and Ellie moved to Gig Harbor, WA in 2008 to be close to their grandchildren and extended family. Gary’s enthusiasms then shifted to volunteer work with local organizations. He drove elderly neighbors to doctor’s offices and became web master for his local HOA and for his church, for which he also created a monthly newsletter. In 2012, he became active with the Climate Reality Project and was trained as a climate leader by Al Gore to give presentations on climate change to local organizations.
Gary was a man of many talents and self-taught skills. He loved music and theater and also cross-country skiing, sailing, tennis and golf, and was an avid follower of many sports. When his boys played Little League Baseball, he was head umpire. He built a second story on the family home in Palo Alto, CA and used his woodworking skills to make all the woodwork and interior doors and cabinets in their newly built home in Bolton, MA. An avid photographer, he loved giving gifts of photos to family and friends. He created well-researched genealogies for his own family and for members of his extended family.
One of his retirement activities returned Gary to his West Point days. He joined an email forum with his former classmates, with whom he frequently disagreed, but nevertheless enjoyed engaging with, respectfully, in lively debates. It was his way of acknowledging his debt to the institution that had transformed his life.
— Ellie Klauminzer and classmates