Glynn's obituary
Glynn Eugene Woods passed away on June 26, 2025, at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas, at the age of 81. Glynn was born the youngest child of three on July 30, 1943, in Bunkie, Louisiana. He was preceded in death by his father, Aubrey James Woods, his mother, Eugenia Elizabeth Brister Woods, his sister, Merrie Anne Woods Guillot, his brother, Aubrey James Woods, Jr, and his wife, Sharon Marie Ballard Woods, who died on March 19, 2025. He is survived by his son, Anson Wade Woods of Houston, his daughter, Alexis Ann Woods of Phoenix, Arizona (Ryan Jeffrey McGinnis), and his grandsons, Kieran Joseph McGinnis and Nathan Sidney McGinnis.
Glynn was born in Bunkie, Louisiana, and grew up in DeQuincy, Louisiana. He briefly attended Louisiana State University, before transferring to the University of Houston, where he met his first wife, Carolyn Eileen Rubin, whom he married on September 3, 1965. He graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in mechanical engineering, because the chair of the chemical engineering department wouldn't allow night students like him, who held jobs during the day, but the mechanical engineering department did. He pursued a decades-long career in piping design, stress, supports, and failure analysis. He worked for various Houston-area firms, including Brown and Root, MW Kellogg, WFI, Bechtel, and Technip. He started his own consulting firm, GCS Consulting, and traveled up to three months out of the year for work until just a few years ago. He traveled internationally so frequently, he had to order extra pages for his passport at one point. Glynn was a long-time member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) B31.3 Mechanical Design Committee. He was also a published author of the CASTI Guidebook to ASME B31.3 Process Piping.
He lived in Kingwood, Texas, until his divorce in 1991. He built a new life, jogging nearly daily in Houston's Memorial Park, and ultimately met his second wife, Sally Jane Pledger, whom he married in 1997. Sally died of lymphoma at the very young age of 48 the following year, 1998. Glynn met his third wife, Sharon Marie Ballard, whom he ultimately married on February 2, 1999. Glynn and Sharon bought eight acres of undeveloped land in New Ulm, Texas, and built a new home of their own design. They originally divided their time between Houston and New Ulm, and eventually left city life behind, moving to New Ulm full-time.
Glynn was a member of the unofficial "breakfast club" at the Texas Star Cafe in New Ulm, where he and other area men would share breakfast several times weekly and solve the problems of the world over eggs and toast. Sharon and Glynn made many friends in the area, often traveling internationally with them, usually on river cruises. Glynn loved sitting on the porch of his New Ulm home and watching the birds and animals that frequented his yard, including opossums, raccoons, foxes, deer, and vultures. The next-door neighbor's mules came to expect their bonus dinner of one scoop each of pellets around 5pm every day, and would appear at the fence, patiently waiting to be fed.
Glynn was devastated by the death of his wife, Sharon, on March 19, who died from stage 4 breast cancer after nearly five and a half years of living with the disease. He would go for drives through the country, often ending up at Whataburger in Brenham for a breakfast sandwich. In mid-June, he had an accidental fall at home, striking his head, and sustaining an intracranial hemorrhage. Though he was rescued by the local police and was transported to Hermann Hospital, in Houston, Texas, he experienced, over the next nine days, a dizzying array of complications, including a deep vein thrombosis, kidney failure, liver failure, disseminated intravascular coagulation, respiratory failure, sepsis, and congestive heart failure. On June 25, he experienced a sudden neurological event, whereby he had no more pupillary response, gag reflex, or cough reflex. After monitoring him for one more day, after observing no neurological recovery, he was withdrawn from life support. His pastor, Kathleen Halpin, of Industry Methodist Church, was kind enough to drive 100 miles to Hermann Hospital in a driving rainstorm to accompany his family at the bedside in those last moments.
Glynn will be remembered for his decades-long dedication to mechanical engineering, his love of animals, his inability to use most technology, and his love of photography. He will be missed very much, especially by his family, his "breakfast family" at the Texas Star Cafe in New Ulm, and the many ASME friends he made all over the world.