Obituary of Richard Burke Bratbak

Richard (Dic) Burke Bratbak June 20, 1935 to June 25, 2007 Richard (Dic) Bratbak was born in Tacoma WA to Olav (deceased) and Yetive Bratbak. He graduated from Stadium High School in 1954 and belonged to ROTC at a time when students brought their riffles to school on bus for drill practice. During these years he worked summers at Foss Tug tending log booms up and down the inland waterways from Puget Sound to Alaska. He enlisted in the U.S. Air Force for pilot training and perfected writing skills working on Air Force newspaper publications. While working full time at American Lake Veterans Hospital, he attended and graduated from UPS with a bachelor's degree. He completed his Master's degree at WSU in 1965 and nearly completed his Doctorate in Psychology. He minored in German and math. His master's thesis (a study on the behavior of rats) is published and in the WSU library. He had a brilliant mind. In the mid 60's he wrote a letter to his brother in law in Vietnam, praising the troops fighting that war. His inspirational letter was then published in the military news publication "The Stars and Stripes". It was a distinguished honor, to have his letter published there because few civilian letters were ever published in this military publication. After college in 1966, he began his professional career working at Lockheed Aircraft Co. in Burbank California. In April his daughter, Krista was born. A year later he brought his young family back to the Pacific Northwest. They settled in Puyallup and he began working for the Boeing Airplane Co. working with psychological impact designs. One time he was sent to Cape Kennedy for a month with a team of specialists from Boeing to access the reason for the first space shuttle disaster. In 1972, Dic moved his family to Washington, DC where he started work for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Dept of Transportation (DOT). There he awarded and managed contracts for air traffic control and navigation for both civil and military aircraft. During this time he was instrumental writing a section of the speech for the deregulation of transportation given by the President. He wrote a book which is in the Library of Congress that gave invaluable information for air traffic in trans-continental flights. His work revolutionized and assisted airlines with the calculations needed for trans-Atlantic flights. It predated computerized calculations. He also received special invitations to attend and speak at the United Nations on matters regarding trans-Atlantic air traffic and radar tracking. He was pleased to be a part of many safety regulations in the auto industry, such as seat belts, gas mileage requirements and many other safety regulations. (These were reversed by the next administration but returned about 20 years later). Also during his time at DOT, he wrote portions of the State of the Union address on issues relating to DOT. During the years he lived in Washington DC, his son Kevin Gregg was born. In 1976, administration changes in Wash. DC, he decided to move his family back to the Northwest where his children could be near their grandparents. To continue his work in the field of aeronautics, he went to work for McDonnell Douglas in California in their airlines' marketing division in 1977, where is traveled world wide marketing airlines. He traveled in: Africa - Kenya, Morocco, Egypt, Paris, France, Italy, England and Holland. In 1986, he worked briefly for IRS and by mid year he started a new career working for the Department of Labor, in the Bureau of Labor Statistics as an economist. As a field manager, he was responsible collecting data used in calculating the US Consumer Price Index. For the next 16 years, until January 2002 when he retired, he managed data collection and wonderful staff in the west coast region of the U.S.. His data collection cities included: Seattle, Yakima, Pullman, Portland, San Diego, Phoenix, San Francisco, Anchorage, Alaska and Honolulu, Hawaii. He also assisted on special projects that took him to Washington DC, Baltimore and Virginia Beach. Also in 1986, he met Veronica Hamling from Olympia. They were married in September 1988 and her children, Vaughn Martin Hamling and Patrice (William) Hart joined his family. During his business trips to the many data collection cities, he enjoyed the times his wife could occasionally travel with him. They spent 21 years together. He lived most of his 72 years in Tacoma. He is survived by his mother, Yetive Bratbak of Tacoma, his wife, Veronica, their 4 children Krista Waite- Bishop (Justin) of Turlock California, Kevin Bratbak of Puyallup, Vaughn Hamling of Tacoma, Patrice (William) Hart of Falls City, 4 grandchildren, Kamarin Waite, Jaimes Bishop, Steven and Erica Hart, his sister, Lynn (Buzz) Blick of Vashon Island and niece, Rischel (Gary) Grandquest of Seattle. There were many special joys in Dic's life. He loved Christmas like a little kid. There were always lots of presents, packages, ribbons, and decorations where he enjoyed the joy of the children, spouses and grandchildren. He loved his many pets and called them friends: Sinbad I & II, Pywhacket I & II, Millie, Sarah, Ernie and his Samoyeds, Tanya, Tasha and Nika. He loved nature, gardening and built a rock fence that he said would last for years. He was creative and used his many skills in remodeling 3 homes from 1988 to 2000. He loved trips to the ocean, hiking in the mountains, fishing and trips to Point Defiance Park. He was exceptionally brilliant man with an amazing memory, knowledgeable in virtually every area. He loved to read, learn and was always growing mentally. He felt a kinship with Egyptian and Roman history and loved watching old war movies. He was generous, kind, gentle and often quiet or thinking. He was honest and fair with staff, friends and family. He was dearly loved and will be greatly missed… A private celebration for family and friends will be held at a later time. Please sign the guest book at this website and share your memories and special thoughts about Dic. The family requests that you make donations to a charity of your choice in remembrance of him.