William (Bill) Sanford Plank died on July 13th, 2024 at his home in Bend, Oregon. He was 83. He was born in Chicago, IL to Dorothy M. Wilke and Philo M. Plank on August 7th, 1940. He loved his hometown and was a proud Chicagoan throughout his life. Upon graduating from Taft High School in 1957 Bill attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign, graduating in 1964 with degrees in English and Civil Engineering.

Upon graduation, he joined the Coast and Geodetic Survey (now NOAA) in 1964 as a commissioned officer. His first assignment on his ship was remapping the ocean floor and the Bay of Valdez after the Good Friday earthquake in Alaska. His work in the Coast Survey inspired an interest in oceanography. He earned an MS in Physical Oceanography from Oregon State University in 1971. He worked as a research engineer in optics at OSU from 1966-1974, going on numerous research cruises in the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean as well as a research trip to T3 - a floating ice island in the Arctic Ocean.

It was at Oregon State that Bill met Suzanne (Suzy) Williams. They married in Smithers, British Columbia in 1973, and in 1974 they moved to Saudi Arabia when Bill was hired by the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). He served as supervisor of the Offshore Survey department from 1974-1977, Project Engineer in Offshore Platforms and Pipelines from 1979-1986, and then as Chief Surveyor in Surveying Services from 1986-1995, the job from which he retired. During a break from oil company work, Bill was an owner and manager of Marys Peak Aviation in Corvallis, Oregon from 1977-1979.

Bill and Suzy’s three daughters were born and raised in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. They found life in the Kingdom to be an ideal place to raise their family, to travel and to make lifelong friends. Upon retirement from ARAMCO in 1995, Bill and his family returned to Corvallis, Oregon. In 2013 Bill and Suzy moved to Bend, in Central Oregon.

A train trip to the Pacific Northwest as a child inspired Bill’s love of the mountains and outdoors. He and his friends from graduate school taught themselves to climb, eventually summiting all of the peaks in the Oregon Cascades, including Mt. Hood four times. He also climbed in the Swiss and Austrian Alps. He was an avid skier, cyclist, sea kayaker, and backpacker- making a dozen backpacking trips into the Grand Canyon, a favorite place of his. Being outside in nature was his joy whether he was summiting mountains or walking his dog in the forests around Bend.

Bill is survived by Suzy, his wife of 50 years, his daughters Lisa Plank (Erik Devlin), Annie Foster (Mike, grandson Jack) and Meg Krusemark (Ryan, and grandsons Luke and Hayes), his nephew Christopher Schweda (Christine Lewinski), sister-in-law Patricia Charbonneau, nieces Julia Charbonneau and Monique Landon. He was predeceased by his parents Philo and Dorothy Plank and sister Jean Schweda.

Bill loved to cook, travel, and study history. He was an outdoorsman, and a memorable storyteller. He will be remembered as a loving husband, father, grandfather and great friend and colleague to many. Bill will be deeply missed but the memories we have will be a comfort to all of us who knew him. 

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