Byron Winn, a pioneer in solar energy development and longtime professor at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, died on July 3. He was 77.
He was recovering from a September stroke when he fell in April and broke his back and neck, said his wife, Donna Winn. His cause of death was a heart attack, she said.
Byron Winn, who was at CSU for 31 years, was one of the people who helped build the solar village on the Foothills campus in the 1970s.
He was department head and professor in mechanical engineering and helped teach students to go into careers in clean energy, environmental stewardship, industrial energy efficiency and efficient building design, according to a CSU story.
Many of his students went into solar energy research, including Sue Hock, who works at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory at Golden.
“He was very innovative, a very tough teacher, but he was the best,” said Hock, who is executive director for strategic planning at the laboratory. “He had high expectations, and if you were willing to put in the work, he was willing to help you.
“Engineering problems sometimes take hours to work through and he would help you when you needed to take a different approach,” said Hock, who was his student in the 1970s and had kept in touch with him since.
Byron Winn loved teaching, his wife said.
When he wrote his own obituary 10 years ago, he said his greatest legacy was his students. He added a little whimsy, writing that by the time he died he would have three great-grandchildren: Wynken, Blynken and Nod.
During a sabbatical, Byron Winn taught at Newcastle University in Australia, helped with a satellite project in Paris and taught at the University of Texas.
Byron Winn was born Nov. 21, 1933, in Canton, Mo., and graduated from Hannibal High School in Hannibal, Mo.
He studied for two years at the University of Illinois, and then he served two years as a paratrooper in the Korean conflict before going back to finish his degree.
Later, he earned his master’s and doctorate degrees in aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford University.
He taught at Santa Clara University while studying at Stanford, but the rest of his career was at CSU.
He married Donna Taylor on Aug. 25, 1957.
In addition to his wife, he is survived by a daughter, Julie Winn Knighton of Fort Collins; two sons, Derek Winn of Fort Collins and Byron Winn of Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass.; and seven grandchildren.
Virginia Culver: 303-954-1223 or vculver@denverpost.com
