Gregory Paris Fehr (1943-2019) Obituary

Gregory Paris Fehr of Henderson Nevada passed away on March 17, 2019.

Gregory often mentioned he was conceived in Waco, TX, but he was born in Urbana, IL on November 10, 1943. Returning to Waco after the birth for approximately one year, the family, father Orval Jochim and mother Cuba Lucile (Paris) Fehr, moved back to Urbana where Gregory attended first grade through Urbana High School. There he was elected to the Sagamore Senior Honor and Activity Society. During that time, he was active in Boy Scouts with perfect attendance for his first 3 years. As a founding member of Troop 100, he was elected to one of the initial Patrol Leader positions, and was eventually appointed Junior Assistant Scout Master, also the first to hold that position. He was the first member of the troop to be elected to the Order of the Arrow (OA) honor and service organization. He held positions as Vice Chief of Service (1959-60), and Chief (1961) in OA, as well as Vice President of his Explorer (senior Boy Scout) Post. From 1959 through 1961, Gregory served on the Arrowhead Council’s Camp Drake summer camp staff near Danville, IL. Concurrently he was active in his Lutheran Church Youth Group serving in various positions, including Vice President.

Gregory was a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity (was Secretary as a sophomore and later was House Manager for one semester) and graduated from Oklahoma University in 1967 with an engineering degree. As a member of the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps (AFROTC), he qualified for Distinguished Military Cadet, and was chosen as Outstanding Cadet the first week of his senior summer camp training. In his final 2 years of AFROTC, he advanced from Cadet 2nd Lieutenant to Cadet Major, and then to Cadet Colonel (the highest ROTC rank). He tied for the number one scholastic position in his ROTC graduating class.

Upon graduation, he accepted an engineering position at Fisher Controls Company in Marshalltown, IA. While there, he coached the YMCA/YWCA swim team for 2 years; was president of the Marshalltown Tennis Association for 2 years; held positions of Vice Chairman and Chairman of Professional Engineers in Industry of the Iowa Engineering Society associated with the National Society of Professional Engineers; was Public Relations Chair of the Central Iowa Section of the American Institute of Industrial Engineers; and was a member on the Advisory Committee for Marshalltown Community College. After 10 years at Fisher Controls, Gregory, with a 1977 night school MBA from Drake University, held various engineering and management positions with General Electric; Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) in Saudi Arabia; Brown & Root; Oil Technology Services (Director of Engineering, and then Vice President and COO); Standard Oil Production Company (responsible for establishing a new Materials Engineering Department for the lower 48 states and Alaska); Wyle Laboratories; Science Applications International Corporation (served as Vice Chair, and Chairman of the Employee Advisory Council in Las Vegas, NV); and Converse Consultants in Las Vegas. Gregory took a leave of absence in the middle of his tenure at Converse to be a turn-around General Manager of the Accutech manufacturing operation for approximately one year in Las Vegas. He took early retirement in 2004 from Terracon Consulting Engineers and Scientists in Las Vegas, NV. The Parsons Corporation (over 11,000 employees) hired Gregory in late 2004 to a part time position as Principal Corrosion and Metallurgical Engineer. Also in 2004 (continuing to the present), he assumed the position of Managing Principal and CEO of ATMG of Nevada, a worldwide technical consulting firm specializing in failure analysis, corrosion, metallurgical applications, and structural condition assessment. While continuing to manage ATMG of Nevada, Parsons asked Gregory to add to his part time Parsons engineering responsibilities the full-time position of Quality Assurance Manager for Engineering and Construction at the S. NV Water Authority (SNWA) beginning in April 2006. He “retired” from that assignment in January 2009. The Parsons San Francisco (SFO) office then requested Gregory to establish and manage a vendor inspection program for the SFO Public Utilities Commission (Water) for their water infrastructure refurbishment and expansion budgeted at over one billion dollars. He remained active in those operations until October 2010 when he formally retired from Parsons.

Gregory taught the steel structures portion of the American Society of Civil Engineers international seminar, Structural Condition Assessment of Existing Structures, from June 1998 until January 2017 totaling over 120 sessions in the US, Canada, Mexico, Okinawa, and the Panama Canal Zone. He also taught continuing education seminars for the Institute for Design Professionals (NY) and the Water & Wastewater Education and Training Consortium of S. Nevada for several years. Beginning in 2011, he volunteered at the Boulder City (NV) Railroad Museum assisting with the maintenance of their diesel engines and rolling stock.

He worked through the chairs of the Southern Nevada Cathodic Protection Coordinating Committee beginning in 1997, and continued as an active member until the present. He was elected the first Trustee, a 3-year term, for the new section of the National Association of Corrosion Engineers (NACE, Intl.) established in the Las Vegas Area in 2003.

Professional licenses and certifications include Registered Professional Engineer (Mechanical and Metallurgical) in Oklahoma, and Registered Professional Engineer (Mechanical) in Iowa, Texas, Maine, and Alabama; NACE Intl. Certified Cathodic Protection Specialist and Corrosion Technologist; and National Association of Amusement Ride Safety Officials (NAARSO) Inspector. He also participated on ASTM (Am. Society for Testing & Materials), ASNT (American Society for Nondestructive Testing, and EPRI (Electric Power Research Institute) committees. He has been listed in Who’s Who in America and Who’s Who in Finance and Industry, among others.

He is survived by Kathleen Fehr, his wife of 29 years, his daughter Kristina Volkir of Livermore California, his son Tyson Fehr of Highlands Ranch Colorado, his stepson Matthew Ingenthron of Huntington Beach California and his stepson Christopher Ingenthron of Venice California.

The family is honoring Gregory’s request that there be no funeral services. In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests that donations be made in his name to Friends of the Nevada Southern Railway (nevadasouthern.com), Oklahoma University School of Engineering or Lou Ruvo Brain Institute of Las Vegas.

_Editor’s note_: Greg authored this himself. We have published it adding minimal details.

The editors for this were myself, my mother Kathleen Fehr and Greg’s best friend, Chuck Foster. Per Greg’s wishes this originally appeared April 21st in the Review Journal of Las Vegas Nevada, the News-Gazette of Champaign Illinois, and the Times-Republican of Marshalltown Iowa. It is scheduled to appear in the Reno Gazette Journal of Reno Nevada on April 28th. To fit obituary guidelines and length in those publications, we omitted some detials. A more complete version, closer to what Greg authored for himself, apperas above.