Keith Opprecht

In Memoriam

M. Keith Opprecht of Ogden, Utah died from complications of Alzheimer’s disease on February 12 of 2022; he was 86. Raised during the Great Depression in Chinook, a rural Montana town, he lived a full life and went on to play an influential role among America’s first generation of aerospace engineers.

Keith was the oldest of three children in his family in Chinook, a town of 2,000 along the Milk River not far from the Canada border. His father Merrill was an electrician at the U&I sugar factory and his mother Helen taught in a one-room schoolhouse. One might think Keith was gunning for a role as the All-American Boy.

He rode (or walked) a paper route from boyhood, rising before dawn to pick up the bundle tossed from the train and deliver the news in whatever weather northern Montana was dishing out that morning. He was a boy scout, and then class president. By the time he left for college he’d also worked part-time as a store clerk, a lifeguard, and a gandy dancer on the railroad.

Keith was a gentle spirit, friendly, but not a back-slapper. The only woman Skeeter seriously dated was his high school sweetheart, Ellen Haugen, a high-spirited farm girl who happened to be class valedictorian. They married the summer they graduated university; and as was common in the 50’s, Ellen paused her educational path in light of her husband’s higher earning potential.

With Ellen’s support, Keith completed a masters degree in chemical engineering at Montana State University in Bozeman. At a time when most engineering grads were signing on with big oil, Keith went the Buck Rogers route into aerospace. In 1959 he accepted a position at the rocket factory Thiokol Chemical was building in the desert northwest of Brigham City.

Keith and his fellow engineers worked with slide rules and hand-calculated spreadsheets to design and develop solid propellant rocket motors, most often “delivery systems” for nuclear warheads. As project engineer in a career that spanned four decades, his diplomatic manner and unassuming character proved an asset in coordinating teams of brilliant and often headstrong engineers. When Apple Inc. launched the Macintosh personal computer in 1984, he quietly bought one for himself and brought it to the plant to use on his team’s proposal efforts.

He was an easy touch for leadership roles in the community, president of the Lutheran congregation or the condo association. Keith and Ellen built three apartment buildings in Brigham City, which included government-assisted housing and handicap units. His tenants may or may not have known that the fellow who sometimes showed up to repair the sink was a rocket scientist doing the work in his spare time.

Keith enjoyed golfing, camping and hiking with his kids and his buddies. He chose not to spend money on a big sailboat, but spent a great deal of time with his friends on theirs, most often on Bear Lake. He was a dedicated photographer from back in the day when taking a decent photo almost required an engineering degree.

Blessed with a highly logical mind, he yet baffled the members of his family with his private taste for country music, foot-long hot dogs, and the hobby of geocaching, which led him to spend incomprehensibly long spans of time tromping through woods with a GPS device, searching for little hidden boxes of trinkets.

His wry sense of humor was essential for keeping his family on an even keel through triumph, drama and tragedy. He loved quoting the aphorism, “Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”

Together with Ellen, Keith visited every continent, climbed mountains in Tibet, re-explored Incan ruins, and photographed African crocodiles from inadvisably close range. He considered himself fortunate, throughout a life that kept him endlessly entertained. His family feels equally blessed and treasures the memory of papa in his red smoking jacket taking family photos on Christmas day; helming a well-trimmed sloop with the wind in his hair; or placidly observing carnival goers from a bench, a smile on his face, musing as life swirled around him.

Keith was preceded in death by his wife Ellen and his children Annamarie and Marshall Neil. He is survived by his children, Kurt, Kerrie and Matthew, and grandkids.

All who remember Keith are welcome to share their remembrances at either of the following informal celebrations of his life to be held: February 11, Saturday, 3:00 PM at the Brigham Academy Center and February 12, Sunday, 3:00 PM at Roosters Tavern, 25th Street, Ogden Memorial donations can be made to Trails Foundation of Northern Utah, https://tfnu.org or the Ogden Nature Center https://www.ogdennaturecenter.org/join-give/donate.