Obituary: Smith, Roger Spencer
Age 84
He was 84.
Roger was born in Butte, Montana on October 10, 1930, in the midst of the Great Depression.
He was the second of four children born to Lois (nee Spencer) and Burtt Russell Smith, then an accountant for the Anaconda Copper Mining Company.
Roger’s maternal grandfather was a liberal, nationally syndicated political cartoonist descended from Quakers; his paternal grandfather was an ultraconservative, teetotaling Methodist carpenter descended from Loyalists in the Revolutionary War.
The two strains combined in Roger to form a man of even temperament - conservative but tolerant, strong in his convictions but sensitive to the feelings of others, careful with his money but generous to those he loved.
The family moved to Spokane, Washington in 1932 where his father found work at the Federal Land Bank.
Roger held jobs from a young age and by high school was working as a draftsman for a local patent attorney, Greek Wells, who had a formative influence on his life.
Roger left Spokane to study electrical engineering at Montana State College in Bozeman, Montana, where he joined the fraternity Sigma Chi, made fast friends and generally had a good time - the dean of the engineering school famously rang him late one morning to get him out of bed.
While in Bozeman, he met and married his first wife, Patricia Ann (Stewart) Smith, the daughter of a Montana cattle rancher.
The couple moved back to Spokane so Roger could work again for the attorney Greek Wells while finishing his undergraduate studies at Gonzaga University.
He graduated in 1954 with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and went on to Gonzaga Law School where he finished his J.D.
in 1958.
Roger was planning on joining Mr. Wells’ firm when a friend convinced him to fly to New York for an interview with IBM.
The company offered him $10,000 a year - more than double what he could make in Spokane - and so he took the job and moved his young family to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. That started a career in which he moved around the country with the company until his retirement in 1994 as Assistant General Counsel in charge of worldwide patent operations.
Roger’s first marriage ended in divorce and he married his second wife, G. Angelika (Strobl) Smith, in 1989, beginning the second volume of his life.
Angelika expanded his horizons with an extended family in Germany to which he grew close.
The couple traveled frequently, enjoying siblings on both sides of the Atlantic.
They maintained a beautiful home in Florida and spent much of the year at a second home on Long Beach Island, New Jersey, where their children and grandchildren would gather each summer for a much-anticipated annual reunion.
After IBM, Roger became a member of the law firm Morgan and Finnegan in New York City for five years.
He was a member of the New York, Washington and Colorado bars.
He was active in the Intellectual Property Owners Association and the American Intellectual Property Law Association, serving as president of each organization from 1993-1994 and 1996-1997, respectively.
In retirement, he remained active in the profession, acting as an expert witness in many high-profile intellectual property cases.
Roger is remembered for his dry sense of humor and many talents.
He was an accomplished carpenter and avid sportsman.
He loved to fly and was a general aviation pilot for many years.
He also loved to sail his 30-foot sailboat out of Long Beach Island.
Later in life he and his wife took up an interest in glass fusing, a creative endeavor inspired by his late brother Russell.
Roger was active to the end, having recently hiked in Canada’s Maritime Provinces and he was due to visit family in Germany and South Africa over the Christmas holidays.
Most of all, he was a loving and much loved spouse, father, grandfather and friend to many.
He is survived by Angelika, his wife and soul mate of 29 years; a step-son, Peer; three sons from his first marriage, Todd, Craig and Mark; one brother, Jerry; and a sister, Linda.
He delighted in the seven grandchildren he leaves behind: Sarah, Pierce, Sky, True, Anja, Nadia and Johanna.
A celebration of Roger’s life will be held on February 6th from 4 pm to 8pm at the University Park Country Club in University Park, Florida.
The family asks that in lieu of flowers donations be made to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.