Francisco Xabier Garaizar

Francisco Xabier Garaizar, a Lab employee who worked in Computation, died at his home in Oakland Aug. 31. He was 54.

Born in Bilbao, Spain on Dec. 4, 1957, to Angel Garaizar and Maria Carmen Ruiz, he was proud of his Basque heritage even though he became a U.S. citizen and spent almost half of his life in the United States.

After completing his bachelor's degree in mathematics at the University of the Basque Country in 1980, he came to the U.S. to pursue a master's degree in applied mathematics at the University of Michigan and stayed to complete a Ph.D. in 1987.

Following post-doctoral research at New York University, he became an assistant professor of mathematics at North Carolina State University and later a visiting assistant professor at Duke University.

While at North Carolina State he helped to found the Campus Child Care Center, one of his proudest accomplishments.

In 1997, he moved to Livermore with his family to join LLNL's Center for Applied Scientific Computing. Starting his career at the Lab as a mathematician, he went on to become a program manager and eventually deputy director of the center. At the Lab, he was appreciated by many as a steadfast advocate and mentor, especially for those in the early years of their careers.

Among the great passions of his life were soccer and hiking. An avid soccer player in his younger years, he also was a life-long supporter of Athletic Bilbao in the Spanish soccer league.

In his youth, he and his friends hiked extensively in the mountains surrounding Bilbao and those of northern Spain. In California, he would later rekindle that passion for hiking with excursions throughout the Bay Area and in his beloved Sierras.

Having made the trip to the top of Yosemite's Half Dome three times, in the summer of 2010 he climbed Mt. Whitney, the highest summit in the contiguous United States. In recent years, he and his wife also had completed multi-day hikes in the French Alps and Pyrenees.

He was an accomplished New York Times crossword puzzle solver, no small feat for a non-native English speaker.

He is survived by his wife, Lynnette Larsen, and son, Jon Garaizar, both of Oakland; his parents; sister, Maria Carmen Garaizar; and brother, Carlos Garaizar, all of Bilbao; brother, Angel Maria Garaizar of Burgos, Spain; five nieces and nephews; and three grand-nieces. A memorial service will be held Sept. 8 at 11 a.m. at St. Theresa Catholic Church, 30 Mandalay Road, Oakland. Interment will take place in Spain.

In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Yosemite Conservancy, Sierra Club or another outdoor organization, or to the Cancer Support Community in Walnut Creek.