| Parents:
Education: Occupation: Marriage: |
Adrian David Spaans Alida Hooft The Dalton Lyceum Hague, The Netherlands Graduated 1959 Washington State University MA in Mathematics Carnegie Mellon Institute Pittsburgh, PA for doctoral studies Worked for RCA in the aerospace industry Moorestown, NJ Worked for Applied Information Industries Worked for Lear Siegler Grand Rapids, MI Also worked as a contract engineer Martha Elizabeth Greenwood Church of St. James, Jamestown, ND By Rev. Allan F. Nilles August 22, 1964 Witnesses were Raymond J. Greenwood and Alida Spaans |
| Children: | Edward (Attie) | Aug. 3, 1966 | † Aug. 26, 1983 |
| Gretchen Brockman | Sept. 21, 1968 | ||
| Amy Elizabeth | Feb. 5, 1971 |
| Notes: | Ed's birth in The Hague, Netherlands, was anticipated with a certain degree of trepidation by his parents. He had |
| been unresponsive during the final month of gestation because the umbilical
cord was wrapped around his neck. He was placed in isolation from the other new-borns for a few
hours, but insisted upon living. He was brought home to a two room, one bedroom apartment
adjoined to a Mom and Pop store. There Pop sold vegetables, potatoes and, through the early years
of the Second World War, anthracite. The family moved to a second floor flat when Ed was 5 years old
and his mother was expecting their second child.
Ed graduated from The Dalton Lyceum in 1959 in the Hague. He then had to hurry to join his parents and sister in Pullman, WA, who had left a month prior to his graduation because of employment restrictions on his dad's admission visa. Ed enrolled at Washington State University in mathematics, his second choice, because astronomy was not an available option. With his master's degree after five years, he moved on to the Carnegie Mellon Institute in Pittsburgh for doctoral studies. On Nov. 4, 1963 Ed became a citizen changing his name from his birth name Adriaan to Edward Adriaan putting an end to the public assumption that someone named Adriaan had to be a girl. He married Martha Greenwood during his second year in Pittsburgh. He decided to move on because all this pure mathematics was getting pretty dull. His first job was with RCA in Moorestown, NJ, in the aerospace industry, which was his field of employment for the next 33 years. Three beautiful children came along during the next 5 years. During his five years at RCA, Ed held a top secret clearance. He next joined a fledgling company named Applied Information Industries which did communications and navigation research using satellites - the first GPS. When this company failed, he jumped to Lear Siegler in Grand Rapids, MI where he started to work on Nov. 11, 1974. Martha and children joined him in Grand Rapids during the last days of Jan. 1975. His first assignment at Lear was the development of the specifications of an airplane navigation/weapon delivery system. The final product, what a waste, was a 12 foot high pile of documentation. Lear Siegler/ Aerospace is now part of the English holding company, Smiths Industries. While at Lear, Ed worked on the navigation/picture taking system of the Stealth fighter, the Jeep-based navigation system that led the American Abrams tanks through the desert during Gulf War 1 and the fuel delivery/flight profile developments of various Boeing jets. Ed was a contract engineer for a few years following the business recession of the mid 90's. For hobbies Ed cuts wood at their cabin for their two wood stoves. He also grows 50 different types of garlic there, which he maintains for the Seed Savers Exchange. He plays contract bridge and loves to travel. |
| Ancestry: | The Balder Line [through marriage] |
| The Greenwood Line [through marriage] | |
| The Franz Kampa Line [through marriage] |
ChronologicalBy RelationshipFamily StoriesFamily PhotographsOrphan Photographs MapsContact UsResourcesFamily ForumWhat's New