Obituary of Kenneth Arthur Roberts

Kenneth Arthur Roberts Jr. "Kenny," 53 of Ahwatukee, AZ passed away unexpectedly Saturday, March 13, 2021 due to heart failure. Kenneth was born on October 17, 1967 in Phoenix, Arizona to Kenneth Sr. and Latetia (Peay) Roberts. On April 29,1989 he married Cindy Krantz, together they raised three children. He received his Master of Science in Engineering from Arizona State University in 2001. Kenny was an avid mountain bike rider. He loved the trails on South Mountain where he spent the last moments of his life. He loved the outdoors, and with his family has visited almost all of the National Parks, most of the United States and places such as Canada, Scotland, France and Rome. He will be missed for his sense of humor, his quiet disposition and someone we all look up to to fix everything. He has been a Honeywell employee for 26 years. He enjoyed using his gifts and abilities as an aerospace engineer on many interesting projects which allowed him to travel to places like Mexico, Spain and Europe. Those left behind to cherish memories are his wife Cindy, his three children, Kailey, Lauren and Connor, his father Kenneth Roberts, his Mother Latetia (Peay) Roberts, sisters Katrina Marti (Steve) and Amanda Archer and his brothers, Joseph (Kate), Kirk (Margo) and Lance (Andrea), as well as many cousins, nieces, and nephews. The family wishes to express our sincere gratitude for all the prayers, calls, visits and other expressions of love. A viewing will be held 3/19/21 from 2:00 - 5:00 pm at Falconer Funeral Home, 251 W Juniper Ave, Gilbert, AZ, 85233. Memorial service will be held 3/22/21 at 2:00 at Mountain Park Church, 16461 S 48th Street, Phoenix, AZ, 85048. The beloved friends at Honeywell would like to share his accomplishments. Ken Roberts went to work at AlliedSignal as an intern in the mid 1990's. It became immediately apparent that Ken was analytical in nature. The pneumatic controls engineering performance group needed some help and the intern Ken Roberts was provided as a resource. At that time General Electric had asked for some calculations to be performed on test data to produce acceptance criteria for pneumatic valves that AlliedSignal produced for GE. The computations were complex. It was obvious that the work should be accomplished using a computer. So, Ken was given the assignment to create the data sheet using an Excel spreadsheet and create the formulas in Excel that would conduct the calculations. Ken took the assignment quietly as he always did and performed it with master precision. It became obvious to his engineering superiors that Ken was indeed special; and the company "needed" to hire him full time!!! Ken had originally wanted to do heat transfer analysis, but when he graduated from ASU the only engineering job that was available was in reliability engineering. Ken jumped right into that and did outstanding work. BUT, his mentor(s) noticed that he was looking around for something else. AlliedSignal could not afford to lose him. Unfortunately/fortunately for Ken, the company had just hired a really great guy for heat transfer. So, it was suggested to him that he might find the valve performance analysis group a good fit for him. It is interesting how life plays out and it was fortunate for him that his career path got set and the legacy that he would build as he grew into that role. Ken now became Kenny as he was now part of the pneumatic controls family of engineers. Kenny worked very closely with his mentor Paul Banta for a number of years as they sat on opposite sides of a cubical wall. In those days Paul spent a lot of time helping him learn the nature of the trade. Kenny supported Gulfstream and he got to participate in flight testing which was a cool way to get a ride on the airplane. The experience Kenny gained was invaluable and unique at that time for a component engineer. On that program a funny anecdote came from the Engineering Program Manager Stuart Denike. Stuart and some others went to Gulfstream to talk about new business. When they got there, the Gulfstream engineers looked around and said "where's Ken? We really like Ken. We thought that Ken would be here." Stuart and the rest of the Honeywell group were a little embarrassed! From then on, there would not be another situation where the term "where"s Ken" would be uttered by the customer. He made that kind of impression of the talents that he possessed as well as how his character impacted those who worked with him. Kenny worked for a vast majority of his career supporting the pneumatic controls portion of the business at AlliedSignal which then became Honeywell Aerospace. Kenny worked on various programs throughout his career in pneumatic controls including Hawker Horizon, Dornier 728, Gulfstream aircraft programs, GE platforms, Rolls Royce platforms, Boeing programs, as well as Airbus A350XWB. It was the Airbus A350XWB program that Kenny helped change the course of how the pneumatic controls performance group and systems performance group would function together. This influence had started through the earlier Dornier 728 program that Kenny impressed upon his systems counterpart at Honeywell Yeovil England, who was also young at that time. Two brilliant young engineers; one at the component level and the other at the system level. They knew there was a better way. That young system engineer was now the lead system engineer for A350XWB WP1 and Kenny was the lead performance engineer for the pneumatic valves. So, the stage was set to embark on a new way of thinking and working. Today the A350XWB WP1 has been extremely successful to the delight of the customer. With the success of the A350XWB WP1 program, Kenny made the move out of the valve performance group and went to systems engineering for the rest of his career where he took the lessons and success of the A350XWB WP1 program to influence systems engineering at Honeywell. Kenny added knowledge and skills to their group that they didn't have. He quickly became the guy who had the final word on all issues with dynamic modeling, controls, and testing. Kenny had now set his own career legacy within Honeywell Aerospace. Kenny always remained humble and was not the kind of engineer to boast about his accomplishments. He was quietly reserved and yet strong in his convictions. His valve colleagues were extremely proud to know him because his roots were from the valve group. Now Paul Banta was no longer his mentor/teacher, Kenny was a colleague and his greatest ally. A few years ago, Kenny and Paul were both supporting 737MAX. Boeing wanted a big get together at Honeywell Torrance. Boeing specifically stated that both Ken and Paul needed to be there; that they added a lot to the discussion. Paul was heard stating that he was pretty happy to be held in the same high esteem as Kenny! Kenny was one of a kind that can never be replaced. He was a deep thinker that was known to walk the halls of the group grumbling to himself as he devised another solution to the most difficult problems that performance engineering had. He was known to have the kindest eyes and his gentle demeanor made it easy to approach Kenny. Kenny had come far in his career from being an intern to the leading engineer in his field at Honeywell. Kenny leaves a huge hole in the Honeywell organization and will be terribly missed. Thank you John Vasquez and Paul Banta.