Joel H. Bacher

Joel H. Bacher, former President of Congregation Tzedek v'Shalom and the BuxMont Squires

of Song

More than 250 friends and community members attended the funeral on July 20 for

Joel Bacher, a retired Lockheed Martin engineer with a 33-year career developing

communications satellites. He was an active member of Congregation Tzedek V'Shalom since

2001, where he served as President, Treasurer, taught Hebrew School and was currently a

member of the Board of Directors. An active member of the BucksMont Squires of Song, a

barbershop chorus, since 1988, he served as their President, Past President, Program Vice

President, Board Member-at-Large and most recently, Recording Secretary and Valentine's Day

Co-Coordinator. He was also involved with set design and construction for numerous annual

shows, and performed with the quartet, "As Time Goes By."

He studied painting every Thursday for eighteen years with Ellen Hall at the Ivyland

Art Group, where he had a show of portraits in 2009. A prolific painter, he created portraits of

friends and relatives and gave them as gifts. He also enjoyed experimenting with trompe l'oeil,

and combining three-dimensional objects with paintings to create images that extend beyond

the frame. In the last couple of years, he created a huge mural on an outside wall for BARC

Developmental Services in Warminster, and one of several murals created by BucksMont Art

League painters at the Warrington Swim Club.

He enjoyed a lifelong love of folk music, teaching himself to play the guitar as a

teenager by listening to Hank Williams records, and later teaching others to play. He played

guitar upside down, as he was left handed. The past few years he performed at many area

community events with the folk quartet, "Good and Plenty," and was an active member of the

Bucks County Folk Music Society. He also made his own musical instruments, including

Appalachian and hammered dulcimers. In addition, he played piano, banjo, recorder, ukulele

and mandolin.

He also studied Hebrew and Torah every week for years.

Joel Bacher graduated from the City College of New York in 1957 with a bachelor's

degree in Chemical Engineering, the same year he married Carolyn Sanders, who he met at a

college party while playing the ukulele. "My father plays the ukulele," she said, and a fifty-plus

year romance began. His beloved wife, Carolyn, passed away in 2010.

Following college graduation, he was employed at Sonotone in Tarrytown, NY, designing

batteries for hearing aids and communication satellites. He was recruited by RCA Astro

Electronics Division, in Hightstown, NJ, a Sonotone customer, and moved to Mercerville with his

wife and son, Steven, in 1963. City College awarded him a second bachelor's degree, in

Mechanical Engineering, in 1964, the same year their daughter, Susan, was born. He received a

Master's in the same field from Drexel University in 1968, and an MBA from Rutgers University

in 1987. The family moved to South Brunswick, NJ in 1969.

Joel Bacher's career progressed from designing rechargeable batteries for

communications satellites, to managing integration and testing of those satellites and

coordinating launch operations, all for the same company, though it was merged and sold

several times. RCA became GE, later Hughes, Martin Marietta and he retired from Lockheed

Martin. In 1976, with three RCA colleagues, he received a U.S. Patent titled, "Satellite Battery

Reconditioning System & Method," for a process that improved spacecraft battery recharging

effectiveness in orbit. He worked on the first weather satellites, called TIROS, first

communication satellites, called SATCOM, which revolutionized worldwide data, phone and

television communications, and the first satellites that made GPS possible, among others. He

coordinated many launches, in Florida and California, including one on a space shuttle, and

several in French Guiana, using a European Space Agency launch vehicle.

Three years prior to his 1996 retirement, he was transferred from Hightstown to Valley

Forge, resulting in his relocation to Newtown Township. In that year he and Carolyn took on

the loving responsibility of raising two of their grandchildren, then aged three and six, which

continued until Joel's death.

Following his retirement, for several years he was a part-time instructor teaching

Astronomy for non-science majors at Bucks County Community College, as well as Astronomy in

the Bucks Continuing Education division at various community sites, such as Pennswood Village.

Joel was born October 17, 1935, in Elizabeth, NJ. His parents, Jack and Ida (nee

Matlofsky) and the families of Jack's seven siblings relocated to the Bronx shortly thereafter,

where his father and four uncles went into the tire and scrap metal business. The business

thrived during World War II, and evolved into Bacher Auto Salvage, which remains in the Bronx.

Nineteen cousins grew up in this close-knit extended family, spending summers crowded into

bungalows in Rockaway, NY, and living close to each other in Bronx apartments.

Joel Bacher died on July 17 of complications from gall bladder surgery performed at Aria

Health Bucks County.

He is survived by his brother, Louis, and sister-in-law, Elaine, of Idyllwild, CA; girlfriend

Eva Kernis of Philadelphia; son Steven, daughter-in-law Karen Courtney, grandchildren Julian

and NaNa Courtney-Bacher of Newtown Township; daughter Susan Panick of Whitehall, PA; and

grandchildren Jaclyn Panick of Clinton Twp., MI, Kyle and Owen Panick, also of Newtown, and

Angelica Maguire of Asbury, NJ.

Donations in lieu of flowers may be made to the Carolyn & Joel Bacher Memorial

Scholarship Fund, c/o Bucks County Community College Foundation, 275 Swamp Road,

Newtown, PA 18940.