Stan

Dr. Stanley (Stan) F. Smith, Professor Emeritus of Electrical Technology at Onondaga Community College, died peacefully on December 24, 2023, in Woodstock, GA. He was 92 years old.

Stan was known for his love of education and teaching, his storytelling and dry, witty humor, and his passion for studying and playing chess. He also played tennis, trained Labrador Retrievers to compete in field trials, enjoyed wildlife and nature photography, and was a diehard UM Wolverines football fan.

Born in 1931 in Columbus, Ohio, Stan's family soon moved to Buffalo, NY. It was there that he fell in love with chess and won the Buffalo city championship every year from 1947 to 1950. He achieved a U.S. Chess Federation (USCF) master's rating of 2250 in 1950. Stan also played tennis as a youth, a sport he would return to later in life.

Stan enrolled in pre-med at the University of Buffalo, but the Korean War stalled his attempts at a degree. He enlisted in the Naval Reserve and was called to active duty in 1952. He served as a Gun Fire Control Technician (radar & electronics) on the U.S.S. Hornet.

After his honorable discharge in 1954, Stan enrolled at the University of Michigan and graduated in 1958, earning a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering. While in Ann Arbor, Stan met his first wife, Suzanne. Stan was an engineer at Sperry Gyroscope Company in Great Neck, NY, from 1958 to 1968. During this time, his only child, Renee, was born.

Stan discovered a love for training Labrador Retrievers for field trials and moved the family to Central New York, where there was land to raise and train dogs. He worked as a full-time engineer at General Electric in Syracuse, NY, while also enrolled in the vocational-technical education program at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Oswego. He graduated with a master's degree in 1971.

In September 1970, Stan accepted a full-time teaching position at Onondaga Community College, where he taught Electrical Technology full-time until 2000. He taught part-time until 2012 when he fully retired. In 1978, he received a Ph.D. in education from Syracuse University.

During his tenure at O.C.C., Stan earned several awards, including the OCC Trustees Award and the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching. He was the first recipient of the Manufacturers of Central New York (MACNY) Endowed Chair for Manufacturing Studies and appeared in Who's Who Among America's Teachers 2000.

Stan was a devoted educator, routinely serving as department chair, developing the curriculum for ELT circuits courses, as well as making major contributions to the method of course development and documentation to be adopted by Bell Atlantic's Next Step program.

Former colleague Dr. Ramesh Gaonkar says, "As a classroom teacher, Dr. Smith proved himself an outstanding instructor by every academic standard. He was articulate, well-organized, and skilled in classroom rhetoric. He exuded enthusiasm in his classroom presentations and challenged students to achieve excellence. He had a passion for learning, which he tried to instill in his students."

Stan and Suzanne divorced in 1984. While playing tennis, Stan found a new love in Rosalie Sanders, whom he married in 1990. Rosalie died on 12/24/2023, three hours after Stan. Stan is survived by his daughter Renée Smith (Redmond, WA), his sisters Sonia (Smith) Olsen (Manchester, NH) and Susan (Smith) Potthoff (Southington, CT), many nieces, nephews, and grandnieces and nephews, and his stepson Greg (and wife April) Sanders (Marietta, GA), stepdaughter Felicia Rose (Stuart, FL), and three step-grandchildren.