News

By Ron Hayes

    DELRAY BEACH — If you want to see what Joseph Charyk accomplished during his 96 years, look up at the stars.
    In a long and distinguished career in aeronautics, Mr. Charyk was most widely celebrated as the founder of the geosynchronous communications satellite industry. While president, CEO and chairman of the Communications Satellite Corp., he launched the global system of satellites that now circle the globe.
    But to his family, Mr. Charyk, who died Sept. 28, is remembered as a beloved father and grandfather who launched a thousand spirited discussions around the dinner table.
    “It was almost like being part of a debate society,” recalled his son Chris Charyk, of Marion, Mass. “His way of showing his interest was to engage and challenge us intellectually. It was very rigorous, but in a very loving way.”
    As the family ate, Mr. Charyk would serve up the Socratic method, questioning the youngsters about hot-topic subjects in the news. Same-sex marriage, women’s rights, discrimination.
    “Anything he could get a rise out of,” Chris Charyk said. “He had such respect for the little kids that he’d engage them in topics you might think were above their age brackets. My children were very well educated in the ways of the world. He was deliberately provocative.”
    When Mr. Charyk’s son-in-law, an urban planner, visited shortly after Hurricane Katrina struck, he pounced.
    “Why not just flush New Orleans down the toilet?”  Mr. Charyk prodded. “What do you think about that?”
    Mr. Charyk was provocative, but he provoked to make the younger generations think. He had been a thinker all his life.
    Joseph Vincent Charyk was born Sept. 9, 1920, in Canmore, Canada, and earned his Ph.D. in aeronautics magna cum laude from the California Institute of Technology, where he met the love of his life, Edwina Rhodes. The couple were wed on Aug. 18, 1945, and had been married nearly 68 years at her death in 2013.
    From 1946 to 1955, he was a professor of aeronautics at Princeton University, after which he moved to California, the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. and the aeronautics division of Ford Motor Co.
    In 1959, Mr. Charyk became the assistant secretary/chief scientist of the U.S. Air Force, and in 1961 President John F. Kennedy named him the first director of the National Reconnaissance Office, consolidating the CIA, U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy space programs, during which the NRO operated the U-2 reconnaissance program.
    In 1987, he was awarded the National Medal of Technology and Innovation by President Ronald Reagan.
    The Charyks came to Delray Beach in the mid-1980s, living between The Landings and their summer home in Falmouth, Mass. A permanent resident for the past 20 years, Mr. Charyk was a member of the Gulf Stream Bath & Tennis Club, his son said.
    In addition to Chris Charyk, he is survived by two other sons, William and John; a daughter, Diane; their spouses, nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church, where a funeral Mass in Mr. Charyk’s memory will be celebrated at 11 a.m. Dec. 3.
    Lorne & Sons Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.