Donald Eberwine

Don Eberwine, Mission Peak climber and aerospace engineer, dies at 96. Donald A. Eberwine, a retired aerospace engineer and mountain enthusiast who was well known to the Mission Peak hiking community, died in Fremont on Jan. 21 at 96, from complications of a fall. A 40-year resident of Fremont, he climbed Mission Peak multiple times per week well into his 80s. His hiking friends celebrated his 87th birthday on the peak with a champagne toast. By profession, Don was literally a rocket scientist. He began his career in an aircraft assembly plant, then studied aeronautical engineering before serving in the Air Force in 1946-49. He later worked at companies including Chance Vought, Martin Marietta and Lockheed doing design work on aircraft and cruise missiles and eventually on the Space Shuttle and Hubble Telescope programs. He obtained two U.S. patents, for Space Vehicle Docking Couplers and a Multiplug Rocket Engine. Mountaineering, however, was Don’s true passion. After dabbling in sports car racing and piloting in his 20s, he took up skiing, rock climbing and backpacking, serving as a climbing instructor and as trip leader in the Colorado Mountain and Sierra clubs. He climbed a total 23 peaks over 14,000 ft. Don is survived by his wife, Kay, who cared lovingly for him and who with her extended family led him to Jesus’s love. He is remembered gratefully by his son, Keith Eberwine, and daughter, Donna Eberwine-Villagran, for his love and support and for instilling a deep appreciation of nature and science. His only grandchild, A.B. Villagran, admired and—by all evidence—inherited his intelligence, artistic creativity and goofy sense of humor. Don was predeceased by his first wife, Mirbel Horne Eberwine, and parents, Donald Mills Eberwine and Marguerite Farrington Eberwine of Monroe, Michigan. He was loved as one of their own by the Akagi family—Roy, Amy, Reiko, and Elaine—and his son-in-law, Francisco Villagran.