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Kenton Black ’81

December 10, 2021, in Portland, from a heart attack.

Contributed by Bill Trost  ’90

Growing up in the Sweet Home, Oregon, area, Kent worked summers in the fields. He came to Reed because his English teacher, who had been going through colleges one by one at the end of class, summarized Reed with “Kent, you’d do well there.”

He majored in philosophy, paying his way by working at Albertsons and later for Gary Schlickeiser in Reed’s academic computing department. It was there he met his lifelong love, Karen Miller ’84.  After graduating, he worked as the system administrator for academic computing for a few months (succeeded by Bill Trost ’90) before going to Tektronix and then a small local computer contracting firm, EASE Software. There, he and Mark Mason ’89 founded their own computing company that was later bought out by Wind River. He was able to retire early and continue or expand on his various passions: cooking, especially bread baking, photography, travel, and, of course, all things computer. 

Appeared in Reed magazine: June 2022