FALMOUTH, MAINE William Fecych, 80 of Falmouth, ME died Sunday, February 29, 2004 at Cape Elizabeth, ME. He was born August 9, 1923, in Hubbard, a son of John and Mary Kostiw Fecych.

He served with the U.S. Navy in the Pacific, was a 1941 graduate of Hubbard High School and graduated from Case Institute of Technology in 1950 with a degree in electrical engineering.

Mr. Fecych was one of the country's leading nuclear engineers and helped lay the foundations of the field, particularly in his fifteen years at NASA's Plum Brook Facility in Sandusky, OH. His career began at Pittsburgh Plate Glass and in 1953, while employed at Electric Boat in Groton, CT, he was named shift test engineer on the USS Nautilus, the nation's first nuclear-powered submarine. In 1962, he helped design and bring on line the Plum Brook reactor, a sixty-megawatt research and test reactor. During the years of the Apollo space program, he was chief of reactor operations and trained all of Plum Brook's reactor operators.

In 1974, at Union Carbide reactor lab in Sterling Forest, NY, he oversaw the development and production of techniceum-99, the most widely used imaging isotope in the world for the diagnosis and treatment of cancers. In 1978, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a staff member at the Nuclear Reactor Laboratory. As the utilization engineer, he developed the MIT reactor's production capacity for Te-99. He also oversaw major construction projects at the reactor, including the trace analysis lab. The then director of the laboratory, Professor Otto Harling, recalls, "Mr. Fecych was an extraordinarily competent and versatile engineer and a person of sterling character."

Following his retirement in 1988, Mr. Fecych pursued many lifelong interests including boat building, photography and woodcarving. A man of great generosity, he took particular pleasure in doing things for others.

He is survived by his wife of 53 years, Joanne Rothrock Fecych of Cape Elizabeth, ME; two daughters, Ruth Fecych of New York, NY and Laura Fecych Sprague of Portland, ME; a son, William Rothrock Fecych of Baltimore, MD; two sisters, Evelyn Patterson of Dallas, TX and Julia Fricker of Hubbard, OH; three granddaughters.

His parents and a brother, Julian Fecych, preceded him in death.


William Fecych Obit continued


Funeral services were held in Cape Elizabeth, ME.

Contributions can be made to Massachusetts General Hospital, Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Gift Processing Center, 100 Charles River Plaza, Suite 600, Boston, MA 02114.

To view this obituary and to send condolences to the family, please visit www.kelley-robb.com.

The Kelley-Robb Funeral Home handled arrangements.

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