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In Memory

Enrique Cuellar

Enrique Cuellar

Deceased Classmate: Enrique (Henry) Cuéllar Ferreira
Date Of Birth: November-24-1947
Date Deceased: September-30-2021
Age at Death: 73
Cause of Death: liver transplant surgery
Classmate City: Menlo Park, California

 

Enrique is survived by his mother, Inés Ferreira de Cuéllar, and his aunt Cecilia Ferreira de Alvarez and her husband Luis Camilo Alvarez of Cali, Colombia; by his son Gregory Stratos Cuéllar of San Francisco, CA, and his (former) wife Georgette Stratos, of Moraga, CA; by his sister, Inés Cuéllar Phillips and her husband MacDonald Phillips of Woodbridge, Virginia, and by his three nieces, his nephew and their families.

Enrique was born and grew up in Cali, Colombia. He attended Colegio Bolivar, an American accredited bilingual school, from kindergarten through high school, graduating with honors in 1966, and being one of two students in his graduating class who, for the first time in the history of the school, obtained dual high school diplomas: a U.S. High School diploma and a Colombian Bachillerato diploma.

Enrique came to Oberlin College in the Fall of 1966, as a foreign student on a full scholarship, and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, cum laude, in Chemistry in 1970, having been inspired by Professor Norman Craig. At Oberlin he participated in many Outing Club adventures in the Smoky Mountains, and caves of Tennessee.

Although he often spoke of returning to his native country to teach at the college level, he went first to the West coast for advanced studies in the field of laser spectroscopy and remained based in California for most of his career. He received a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1975, where he studied on a full scholarship with Dr. George Pimentel as his dissertation advisor. He continued at Berkeley for two more years of post-doctoral research in atmospheric photochemistry and rapid scan infrared spectroscopy. During those years he reported the first observation of chlorine monoxide, an intermediate in the chlorine-catalyzed destruction of ozone. In 1977-78, Enrique was a Post-doctoral Fellow in Organic Solids at the IBM Research Lab in San Jose, CA. While there, his focus was on optical information storage, photochemical and photophysical hole burning in organic polymer films, laser-induced fluorescence, and coherent transient laser spectroscopy.

His employment history spanned the globe with stints based in Madrid, Spain, and Ulm, Germany, as well as international travel to other countries and continents. In his early years of employment, he served as Staff Scientist at Lawrence Berkeley Lab, then in Research & Development managerial and directorial positions for RayChem and RayNet Corporations, and Ericsson Fiber Access, all of Menlo Park, CA. From 1998 to 2005, he rose from VP of Marketing to VP of International Sales, to VP of Business Development at LGC Wireless of San Jose, CA. From 2006 to 2008, he applied his Marketing and Business Development expertise at Ubidyne GmbH of Ulm, Germany. In 2008, he co-founded Intelant, Inc. of Menlo Park, CA, to develop a new architecture for active antenna systems using mixed signal and RF semiconductor technologies for wireless operators worldwide. Given the global financial conditions of 2008, he and his partners labored to launch the company over a five-year period, eventually closing when a single major investor withdrew.

Beginning in 2013, Enrique returned to academia, serving as a recruiter of STEM students for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. His job involved pairing students with professors who would conduct research at the accelerator during a summer program that he managed. For this, he would travel to speak to groups of students at colleges and universities around the U.S. The program, funded by a grant from the US Department of Energy, is aimed to attract students of color and women, although all are welcome to apply.

In 2016, Enrique reconnected with Oberlin classmates located on the West Coast, to meet in Ashland, Oregon, for a weekend of plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The group included Ann (Hammack) and Wally Shaffer, Karen (Beck) and Carl Skold, Robin Ramsey and Hank Roberts, Kristan Knapp and Janna Auslam. Everyone stayed at a rented house, reminding us of Keep Co-op on the Oberlin campus. We enjoyed it so much that we gathered there again the following year, and also met in August of 2017 in Salem, Oregon, where Ann and Wally lived, for the total eclipse of the sun.

Enrique also tutored high school students who needed help with any of the "maths" - algebra, calculus, trigonometry, etc., and he also assisted students who needed help with Spanish. Tutoring was a "side job" that he loved because teaching brought him great joy. Even at Oberlin he reveled in explaining to his friends, the beauty of the chemistry he was discovering at that time.

Memorial gifts may be made to Growth Sector, a program that will dedicate donations made in Enrique’s name to support diverse community college students in life-changing STEM internships. The link to donate is https://www.growthsector.org/donate. The family may be contacted through Inés Cuéllar Phillips: ines.phillips@gmail.com.

The Oberlin Friends group, including Enrique, met a number of times on Zoom during the pandemic, and had considered all going to our 50th reunion. Sandy and Doug Brown joined our occasional conversations in 2021. None of us knew that Enrique was having liver transplant surgery, not did we know of his chronic liver condition necessitating it. We welcome memories of Enrique from other Obies, both for our group and to share with his family.
 

 
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03/24/22 02:29 PM #1    

Gregory Way

Wow!  What a shock.

Enrique and I both arrived at Oberlin in September 1966 and were in the same floor at Barrows Hall.  That group then in 1967 went to North Hall.  On the first Sunday of that September, Enrique, Alvero Lopez and myself walked over for a breakfast with the Oberlin Foreign Student Association (me being Canadian!!).  People grouped together with others that spoke their language so I hung out with the Spanish group and thanks to Enrique, that's where I met my wife-to-be, Joyce Erdman, who had grown up in Puerto Rico. Enrique later provided me with a couple of Spanish phrases that he promised she would like - and she did!!  We married at Oberlin in 1969 (and Enrique was there) and remained happily married until she died from ALS in May 2017.

I have many times over the years thought of him and wondered what he was and what he was doing.

Thanks so much for the wonderful tribute you did of him.  

 

 

 

 

 


03/25/22 12:07 AM #2    

Kristan Knapp

Enrique our junior or senior year.


03/25/22 12:17 AM #3    

Kristan Knapp

Stephanie Doba, Doug Brown, Enrique Cuellar, ????, and Kristan Knapp in the Smokies, Oberlin Outing Club, March 1967.


03/25/22 09:30 PM #4    

Robin Nicholoff

I'm sorry to have lost contact with Enrique Cuellar years ago.  He was the outstanding leader on our freshman Barrows section intramural soccer team. Being from Colombia, he always had an interesting and knowledgeable perspective during dorm discussions.  I'm glad he had an outstanding career as a scientist and educator.  We need more like him. 


03/28/22 10:26 AM #5    

Gregory Way

I found this picture in our wedding book - May 24, 1969 at Oberlin.  Can anyone name all of them?  And Henry in the middle - what a smile!!!


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