Eugene “Gene” A. Hanson, 74, passed away peacefully on June 19, 2012. Gene was born in rural Hope, North Dakota Oct. 4, 1937 to Arthur and Edith Hanson. The sixth of seven children, Gene was extremely close to his siblings Eunice, John, Kenneth, Carol, Ellen and Richard. He and his family lived and worked on the family farm, which continues today. Gene graduated in 1955 from Portland High School in Portland, ND. As a young man, he also spent five summers fighting fires as a member of the U.S. Forest Service and honorably served his country in the U.S. Army from 1957 to 1959. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Architectural Engineering from North Dakota State University in June 1963 and married Connie Pillatzke on June 15, then moved to Seattle where Gene began his career as a structural engineer at The Boeing Company. In 1965, during a down time at Boeing, Gene worked at Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, Connecticut before being recalled to Boeing and the Pacific Northwest in 1967. He was a wonderful father to their two daughters, Beth and Mary, and loved his family dearly. An expert in wing and strut design, Gene was a proud member of “the Incredibles,” the team of Boeing employees who made aviation history with the design and build of the 747 – the largest civilian airplane in the world at that time. The 747 remains the “Queen of the Skies” even today. Gene’s Boeing career always centered on wide body airplanes, and he spent...