Donald Rockwell

Memories of Don Rockwell

Donald “Rocky” Rockwell died peacefully on January 23, 2022 in the comfort of his Jackson, Wyoming home after a brave three-year struggle with brain cancer.  He was 83.

Rocky was born in Boston, raised in Arlington, Massachusetts and graduated from Sea Cliff High School on Long Island, New York, in 1956.  He attended Cornell for one year and then transferred to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts … where he spent the next 51 years.  He earned the BS (1962) and MS (1965) degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics.  While pursuing his studies in the PhD program, he interned at the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory with the designers and builders of the Apollo Guidance System that took man to the moon.  In those early, magical years, Rocky shared offices with fledgling astronauts who would eventually, and vicariously, fulfill Rocky’s own lifelong dream of going to the moon.

In 1974 the MIT Instrumentation Lab became the Charles Stark Draper Lab.   Rocky was a primary contributor to the Navy Guidance program that, during his career, culminated in the Mark 6 (Mod 0) Guidance System.  His work focused on prelaunch and factory calibrations and related performance evaluations. 

As a young husband and family man, Rocky enjoyed summer weekends on the New Hampshire Atlantic seacoast, building sand castles with his boys.  In winter his treasured pastime was skating on black ice on the Exeter River.  One of Rocky’s great joys was his membership in the Longwood Cricket Club where he played competitive tennis on grass courts for many years. Like most Boston natives, Rocky was a lifetime Red Sox fan.   

Rocky, the “rocket scientist,” was kind, generous, and thoughtful.  He loved classical and country music.  He was a strong yet gentle person, an intelligent soul with an adventurous spirit.  His most unusual adventures were probably two dive trips with his wife Larrie, to the Bahamas and Hawaii collecting fish for the New England Aquarium.  Rocky and Larrie took up kayaking together, exploring the New Hampshire seacoast, the Eggemoggin Reach in Brooklin, Maine, and, later, the beautiful mountain lakes at the base of the Tetons. They skated a Rollerblade Marathon together in southern California when Rocky was a Field Resident for Draper.

Rocky loved to ski.  The first time he skied at Jackson Hole was during his 60th birthday celebration, a 3-month ski ‘Odyssey’ from Colorado to Canada to Vermont.  At the end of that year he and Larrie purchased the log cabin in Jackson they had seen for half an hour.  Thus ensued their ‘seasonal migration’ for several years.  In the Spring and Fall Rocky, on a consulting basis, taught an Aeronautics course of his own design to new Draper/MIT graduates, and to some seasoned Draper engineers as well. 

After Rocky’s third retirement from Draper, he and Larrie moved to Jackson full-time.  They skied 50 days a season, took Avalanche training and learned all about randonnee/backcountry skiing.  Ultimately they helicoptered several times into the Campbell Icefield Chalet in the Canadian Rockies and into the Sorcerer Lodge in the Selkirks, for backcountry skiing.  The rest of the year they took full advantage of all the West and the National Parks had to offer. They hiked, backpacked, kayaked, golfed, biked, and swam in Jenny Lake. 

In his later years, Rocky was eager to learn of his heritage.  His genealogical research inspired a visit to his maternal grandparents’ churchyard in Tostared, Sweden in 2015.  In 2016 he visited his paternal great-grandfather’s pub Tir Na Nog in Ireland and met his Irish cousin Kieran at Kieran’s pub in Ennis.

In addition to cherished friends from the East coast to the West, Rocky is survived by loving family members:  his wife Larrie Dockerill Teich Rockwell, his brother Barry (Debbie) Rockwell of Brookhaven, New York, his former wife Jane Kent Rockwell of North Hampton, New Hampshire, sons Andrew Kent (Vivian) Rockwell of Exeter, New Hampshire and Peter Rockwell of North Hampton, New Hampshire, stepson James Scott Larison Teich of Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and granddaughter Emily Kent Rockwell, also of Exeter, New Hampshire.

Memorial donations may be made in Rocky’s name to Teton Youth and Family Services, 510 S Cache St, Jackson, WY 83001 and/or to St. John’s Health Hospice, 625 East Broadway, Jackson, WY 83001.