Darrell Lewis Seeley, 66, of Delafield, Wis., and Sedona, Ariz., passed away peacefully on Aug. 12, 2016.

Darrell is survived by his wife, Patricia (Trisha); children: Katy (Penny) Seeley and Dan Seeley ’02 (Jessica (Welling) Seeley ‘04); his grandchildren: Reid and Jack; his stepdaughter, Joanne Odden (Adam Schwindt), and stepson Erik (Jenny), and Erik and Jenny’s children: Anders and Annika; his siblings: Dave Seeley, DonnaLou (Pete) Clagett, Clarke Seeley (Donna), Rose Anne (Dave) Steninger, Gail (Bernie de Leseleuc) Seeley; and many Christian brothers and sisters.

Darrell graduated from Anamosa High School, Luther College in Decorah and the University of Iowa. Darrell was a professor of physics at Parkland College in Champaign, Ill., and later, for 22 years at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE).

While teaching at MSOE, he was elected Faculty Senate chairman by his teaching colleagues for several years and selected Teacher of the Year by the student body. He left MSOE to start his own laser safety consulting company in 2002.

In 2011, he joined Rockwell Laser Industries as vice president and worked for them until becoming ill.

Darrell was well known in the laser safety community as a teacher and consultant. He received the Laser Institute of America’s Distinguished Educator award.

Darrell was one of the first nine persons in the United States to become a certified laser safety officer (CLSO), a member of the Board of Commissioners of the Board of Laser Safety, a member of ANSI Accredited Standards Committee ASC Z136 Safe Use of Lasers, corporate member, Laser Institute of America, a member of two ANSI Z136.1 subcommittees on laser safety, a past member of the Board of Directors of the Laser Institute of America (LIA), an industrial laser safety trainer in the U.S. and Canada for the LIA for more than 10 years, a visiting laser scientist with the U.S. Army, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland; Cedar Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles; the Laser Institute of America, Orlando, Fla.; and the Austrian Research Centers, Seibersdorf, Austria, as the first recipient of the Herta Firnberg fellowship there for two summers.

Darrell is best known by his friends for his woodworking workshop in Sedona, Ariz., and for his music and witness ministry at Christ Lutheran Church in Sedona. He helped with the rebuilding of the church organ over a three-year period at Christ the King Lutheran Church in Delafield, Wis. He and Trisha enjoyed swing and Lindy dancing, singing in church together as well as entertaining in their Sedona home. He lived for 22 years in Wales, Wis., before moving to Sedona for five years and back again this year to Delafield when he became ill.

Services were held in the sanctuaries of Darrell’s Wisconsin and Arizona church homes.

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