Sylvester Randolph Witkowski

Sylvester Randolph Witkowski

January 22, 1936 - March 7th, 2019

Rainier, WA.

Sylvester (Syl) Randolph Witkowski, 83 of Rainier, WA. passed away peacefully on March 7th, 2019. He was born on January 22, 1936 in South
Chicago, Illinois the son of Sylvester S. and Jean Janicki Witkowski.

Syl graduated in 1953 from Mount Carmel High School in Chicago,Illinois and went on to Purdue University in Lafayette, Indiana where he graduated in 1957 with a BS in Mechanical Engineering.

After graduation, he accepted a position at Commonwealth Edison as a Mechanical Engineer, where he stayed until he joined the Navy as Fuel Combustion Engineer in 1959. He left the Navy as a Lieutenant after multiple deployments in 1963 and returned back to Commonwealth Edison. He married Christine Winkowski on May 1st of 1965. Together they have four children; Steven 47, Paul 42, Pamela 40, and Kenneth 39.

In 1981, he accepted a position with Weyerhaeuser and moved the family to Tacoma. Over the years he held multiple engineering positions with the Veteran's Administration and the City of Tacoma, from which he retired from in 1998.

Always a Navy man at heart, his favorite activity was spending time on his boat on American Lake with his family water skiing and drinking beer. He was an avid football fan and would always make time to take in a game if his Chicago Bears or Purdue Boilermakers were in town. His other favorite activities included bowling, where he was a member of multiple leagues, and watching James Bond movies. He was a member of the VFW and American Legion Post 0131.