Dr. Daniel Nelson March delivered his final lecture on November 14th, 2024 at the age of 87, surrounded by his family. Dan was born in Miles City, Montana in 1937. He moved to Bozeman to attend Montana State University, where he met his amazing and beautiful wife, Shari (often pronounced Share-Babe). Dan is survived by Shari March, his wife of 61 years, his three children-Peter March (LaRena March), Stacy March and Holly March Summers (Kyle Summers), and one grandson, Douglas March, as well as many of their children’s friends who considered the March residence their home.
Dr. March received his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Montana State University in 1966 and promptly began a 32-year career as a Professor of Electrical Engineering, specializing in telecommunications. His first major accomplishment as a young undergraduate was the analysis of the telecommunications system for the Minute-Man Missile Complex. His work showed that the probability of a missile inadvertently receiving a launch message was so great that there would be an erroneous launch within a year. This revelation resulted in young Dan making an emergency trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with top military officials who quickly made Dan’s suggested changes to the missile system.
Dan also developed, with colleagues, a Meteor-Burst Communication System that bounced radio waves off meteor trails for communication purposes. The Meteor-Burst System is still in use by the U. S. Government to collect snow depth data through the SNOTEL system.
Under U.S. Atomic Energy Commission Sponsorship, Dan developed a lightening location system that is still in use by the National Lightening Location System. Dan also started his own engineering firm, March Engineering. Dan spent years dragging his wife and children (often under protest) across the state on rural right of ways under the 500kV power line studying electromagnetic fields and determining the cause of outages.
Dan enjoyed photography and kept his best photos of wildlife from Yellowstone Park or his own backyard in his shirt pocket to show to friends and family and the occasional unsuspecting stranger as he ate breakfast at the GranTree or walked the mall.
Boats and lakes were always close to his heart. Dan, Shari, and their children spent endless summers on their boat on Yellowstone Lake and Flathead Lake catching fish and towing all the neighborhood kids waterskiing.
All future lectures by Dr. March will be held in heaven and attended by angels and those that predeceased him, including his parents, Douglas and Geneva March, his mother-in-law, Edna Mae Paro, his best friends Jerry Doeden and Bill Wyatt, James Summers and Squirrely, the well fed and photographed mountain brown squirrel.
His family would like to thank the amazing staff at Home Instead Senior Care, Spring Creek Inn, and Compassus Hospice for all their kindness and support in the last few months of Dan’s life, and Craig and Kelly, his favorite bartenders.
A Memorial Service will be held at Hope Lutheran Church on Saturday, November 30th, 2024 at 1:00 p.m. All are welcome!
Arrangements are in the care of Dokken-Nelson Funeral Service. www.dokkennelson.com
