Richard Spivey. Richard died March 8, 2023.
His obituary: Mr. Richard Dick Franklin Spivey, December 6, 1940 – March 8, 2023. America's Chief TiltRotor Marketer and Helicopter Whisperer, dies, 82. Richard F. Dick Spivey, 82, of Fort Worth, Texas, passed away on March 8, 2023 of natural causes after a short illness by prostate carcinoma, dying peacefully at his family's Lake Worth home in the early morning twilight hours. Richard lived a full life and proved his belief that one determined person can change the world. He was born on December 6, 1940 in Chicopee, and raised in Marietta, Georgia, by parents S.B. and Alma (Franklin) Spivey, in a house his father built himself. Spivey liked to say later in life that he became an aeronautical engineer because his parents didn't have enough money to pay his way through college, and that he ended up at Bell because he couldn't spell, a lack of skill attested both by his younger sister Lynn and first wife Jan, and confirmed when just three spelling errors kept him from studying at NASA Cape Canaveral in the summer of 1958. Richard was always into the latest tech - whether using an early citizen's band radio with his mother during his teenage newspaper route, sharing with fellow Georgia Tech engineering students broadcasts from a portable TV wired to his car during the Kennedy assassination, or test-flying the world's first civilian bamboo hang-glider on his parents' neighborhood pond in Austell, Georgia. However, it was his skills of persuasion, first honed as a teen selling root beer at the Dog 'N Suds, that best served him in his professional life. His 64-year career in the military-industrial complex began at Bell Helicopter Textron, where on April 2, 1959. on his first day as a 'co-op' aerospace engineering freshman from Georgia Tech, Rick spied what would dominate the rest of his life: the slowly decaying relic of Bell's 1953 experimental VTOL XV-3 TiltRotor. He spent decades dreaming and planning its possibilities. As detailed in Richard Whittle's biography of the V-22 Osprey, The Dream Machine, Spivey had over 47 years at Bell Helicopter Textron specializing in Aerospace Engineering and Government Business Development, including writing a patent for HueyCobra's whisper wingtip sound dampening, but it was Dick's drive and passion about Mach Zero vertical flight that fueled and propelled the XV-15, JVX, and MV-22 military TiltRotor programs. His long career at Bell as a Sales Engineer and Governmental Marketeer included ten thousand speeches educating Congresspersons, defense agencies, military personnel, and airline professionals on his far-forward dream of a civilian TiltRotor future. At one of several retirement galas, former bosses extolled Spivey's unparalleled skill at delivering any of five briefings: the two-hour, the one-hour, the twenty-minute, the written, or the elevator, when you've got one floor to tell your whole story. Spivey had built his career by [pointing his arms in the air and] saying – ' takes off like a helicopter' – the man rotated his forearms downward so his fingers pointed forward – ' flies like an airplane. ' Richard served four years at Ames Research US Army Aeroflightdynamics Directorate, as Director, offering his guidance and vertical lift knowledge to various Army Research and Development projects. His last Bell Helicopter consulting projects included support to the V-280 Valor TiltRotor, which, coincidentally, was announced the morning of his 82nd birthday. His other written patents, in conjunction with the University of Notre Dame, reduce vehicular drag and improve gas mileage, with billions of dollars in fuel transportation savings possible. Rick was married to the beautiful Janis Glanzer from August 1964 to February 1978, initially meeting at a 1962 picnic with the singles class of United Methodist Church Fort Worth, and they have two sons, Brett and Eric. Richard married the lovely Terry Duncan in November 1982 meeting at United Methodist Church Hurst, and they lived happily in Fort Worth, Duncanville, and Bedford, Texas, as well as Redwood Shores, California, Breckenridge, Colorado, and Angel Fire, New Mexico. The families maintain strong relations. Terry and Richard enjoyed their retirement in the mountains near Angel Fire, riding the Enchantment Loop on their Can-Am motorcycle with friends from the United Church, visiting Meow Wolf in Santa Fe with their grandchildren, braving the monster waves safely from the beach at Mavericks, watching the Dallas Mavericks, wine in Italy, vacationing off the coast of Iceland, and touring Germany and New Zealand. Richard Daido Spivey is survived by his sister, Lynn Owen of Del Mar, California, her husband Cole Owen and their sons Damon and Tate; his children, Brett Spivey with his partner Derth Adams of West Hollywood, California, and Eric Spivey with his daughters, Meghan and Taylor, and his fiancé Shanah Pack Thornton, of Lake Worth, Texas; his sister-in-law Susan (Duncan) Rumbelow of Van, Texas with her children, Maggie, Sarah, Price, and Max; his family-friends Frank and Jan (Glanzer) Mazza of Bedford, Texas; and his goldendoodle puppy Capri of Del Mar, California. He was predeceased by his wife Terry Kay TiKi (Duncan) Spivey, from a shared Tesla automobile accident on September 11, 2021; her sons Aric James Mabry and Duncan Ace Mabry; his father S.B. Spivey and mother Alma Spivey Gillespie, and step-father Hoyt Gillespie; his brother-in-law David Rumbelow; and Terry and Dick's goldendoodle, Willow of Robson Ranch, Denton, Texas. Services and memorial plans to be announced for the summer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Private memorials will be held in California, Colorado, Georgia, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. - Richard F. Spivey. Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.bluebonnethills.com for the Spivey family.
[Bluebonnet Hills Funeral Home & Memorial Park, Colleyville, Texas]
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