Russell Yuen, former Grumman engineer, dies at 85

Russell Yuen's 29-year career as a Grumman electrical engineer involved high-tech satellites, like the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory, and the Navy's F-14 fighter aircraft.

But to his three children, having an engineer for a dad meant, "He was always trying to think of things he could do to make things more efficient and just improve or fix a little problem," recalled his daughter, Judi Yuen.

He rigged a doorbell to the garage door of their Farmingdale home that alerted them whenever it opened or closed. He installed a rope pulley to lift snow tires into a garage attic, instead of lugging them up the stairs in the 1970s. It is still in use today.

Yuen moved to Plantation, Fla., in 2003. He died Monday after a stroke at the age of 85.

Born in New Jersey and raised in Manhattan's Chinatown, Yuen moved to Farmingdale in 1959, where he and wife, Helen, raised their daughter and two sons: David Yuen of Hollywood, Fla., who works in Internet marketing, and Jonathan Yuen of Arlington, Mass., a medical equipment electrical engineer. Judi Yuen, of Farmingdale, is a Newsday presentation editor.

While serving in the Army Air Forces on Guam in 1944 and 1945, Russell Yuen repaired radio equipment for B-29 bombers, his daughter said.

While there, he found a creative way to bring some holiday cheer by stringing together spare old light bulbs and make them blink.

"He said he thought he was the only man on Guam with a blinking Christmas wreath," Judi Yuen said.

After the war, he attended Hunter College on the G.I. Bill and took night classes at Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, where he graduated in 1955 with a bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering.

For a few years after the war, he ran a small radio and television repair shop in Chinatown. He also taught Sunday school at the Chinese Conservative Baptist Church there and was chairman of the Chinese Young People's Bible Conference.

After moving to Long Island, he became a longtime member of the Wantagh Baptist Church, where he served on the audiovisual committee.

As a hobby, Yuen enjoyed photography and was fascinated by the New York World's Fair. Judi Yuen recalled that a Newsday 40th anniversary spread on the fair, included some of her father's pictures.

Yuen had diabetes and took precise notes of what he ate, at what time, even how much the food weighed, to help track his blood-sugar levels, his daughter said "We're all sure that's what contributed to his longevity," she added.

His family asked that donations be made to the Disabled American Veterans Charitable Service Trust.