Alexander Francis Jaszek, resident of Needham, Massachusetts, passed away on October 6, 2023. He was born on June 4, 1941 in Brooklyn, New York to Frank and Josephine (Zugaj) Jaszek, who immigrated from Poland in the nineteen thirties.
Al attended school in Long Island, New York, then in New Jersey, where he graduated from North Plainfield High School. He entered a five-year program at Rutgers University and joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps. He graduated in 1964 with Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees. His Master of Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree a year later was from New York University.
During the war in Vietnam, Al served as an officer in the Strategic Air Command in Great Falls, Montana. The mission at Maelstrom Air Force Base was to maintain readiness of the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in underground silos. This was Al’s entry into reliability engineering. He also gained an appreciation of Montana’s natural beauty and a Westerner’s perspective of America.
Al came to Massachusetts in 1969 to work for RCA. In 1972 he joined GTE (now General Dynamics) in Needham as Senior Engineer. He conducted failure analysis on products manufactured in Needham for defense contracts, and maintained a laboratory with state-of-the-art technology. In retirement, Al worked part time on failure analysis of consumer products. He consulted briefly for NASA at MIT to identify a specific problem with a space module.
Al and wife Sandra moved to Needham with their infant son in 1978. He contributed his mechanical and computer skills behind the scenes for causes and activities of Friends of the Library and the Library Foundation of Needham. Access to library books as a young boy had kindled his interest in science.
He is survived by his wife, Sandra (Skwirut) of Needham, and son Thaddeus, daughter-in-law Angelica (Medina), granddaughters Helen and Audrey in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; nephew Copernicus T. Gaza in Katonah, New York, and niece Grazyna (Gaza) Walsh in Cary, North Carolina. He was predeceased by his sister Diana (Jaszek) Gaza, and brother-in-law Caesar T. Gaza.
Services and private interment will be at the Shrine of Our Lady of Czestochowa in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation in Alexander’s name to the Kosciuszko Foundation, 15 East 65th Street, New York, New York 10065 or to Air and Space Forces Association, 1501 Langston Blvd., Suite 400, Arlington, VA 22209.