Orrie always dominated the room, the meeting, the dinner table. He was larger than life. His mind raced ahead of his speech; those unfamiliar with his delivery could not keep up. Those inexperienced in his profession were lost in a technical discussion with him. Those who understood half his explanations felt fortunate to be students. Orrie once remarked that he valued most the worker who ”wondered why?”. That same curiosity surely drove him, to understand how things worked and why creatures behave the way they do. Usually, the creatures were bacteria and microbes, but I suspect the curiosity extended to fish, birds, dogs, vegetables, and all living things. And he did figure things out, and describe them in technical papers, record them in patents, and explain them in countless reports. He wrote some of those reports for me—to this day I keep them like treasured gifts. He even let me co-author a technical paper with him; I think he was just being kind to me. He was generous with his knowledge and always willing to help find solutions to engineering problems. It didn’t matter if he were talking to the company president or the treatment plant operator; he was honest in his thoughts, and interested in hearing your ideas (though he demanded a logical answer, or he might get a little short with you). Orrie was, above all, an ethical person, and being an ethical engineer was something he did demand. He held high the Civil Engineering Creed that proclaims that one must act ethically--he told me he had it posted on his office wall, and though I never had the chance to see his office, I’m sure it was there. He worked incessantly, but he seemed also to find time to play—fishing, traveling, gardening, watching basketball, dining and drinking with his friends. I have great memories of many dinners with him, listening to his stories and enjoying his laughter and big smiles after telling a particular funny story. Sometimes his telling of stories would become jumbled as the evening and the wine grew old. We laughed anyway, because his laugh and grinning face were infectious. Orrie’s mind never seemed to slow down, even when his illness and pain were slowing his body down. He’d call and want to talk about the behavior of some treatment plant we had worked on together. He’d ask me to send him the operating data so he could make one more technical argument about the theory of biological selectors. Some people didn’t believe his theories, but I believe them, because I’ve applied them and seen them work in the real world. Orrie was real, unpretentious, practical and creative, always wondering “why?”. He was, indeed, a remarkable man. I will sorely miss him. John Wilson Seattle, Washington