Eric A. Leeton

Eric Leeton was born on January 16th of 1966 at the Naval Hospital in Chelsea, Massachusetts, and at the age of 53, was called home to be with the Lord on May 24th, 2019. Because of his father’s career with the Navy, his family moved around a lot. The family lived in the Philippines for four years before relocating to the coastal bend area and remaining there for the rest of his father’s Navy career. Eric served in the Army from 1984-1989. He returned to Corpus Christi and worked at U-Haul and Atlas Radiator before starting his career in the petrochemical industry at Koch Refining.

His career in the petrochemical industry began in the early 90’s at Koch Refining, which is now known as Flint Hills. In 2003, he began working for UOP, a subsidiary of Honeywell, in Field Operating Services. In Field Services, Eric spent the majority of his time traveling for work. He greatly enjoyed learning the languages and cultures of other places. Later, he transferred to Technical Services, with the ability to work from home, allowing him to spend more time with his family and travel less often. His final job title was Principle II Training Services Specialist, working with HF Alkylation, Merox, FCC, and IsoAlky Technologies.

Eric traveled around the world to attend meetings, lead customer trainings, and provide feedback to refineries on how to successfully run their process units. He also provided insight to engineering on how units operate to ensure future units were built in a way that made sense. As stated by his coworkers, Eric seemed to be happiest when he was able to help others to learn for themselves. He was always thinking of ways to improve the technologies and fighting for ways to make operations easier and safer.

Eric met his wife, Cheryl, on a scuba trip in Cozumel in May of 1989 and they married in May of 1993. He was working at U-Haul during this time, and Cheryl would frequently bring him lunch. They had their first daughter, Ariel, in October of 1994; their son, Ian, in March of 1997; and their second daughter, Nicole, in May of 1999. Ariel received her BSN from the University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio (UTHSCSA) and is currently transitioning from her first job with the Christus Santa Rosa system to a position with University Hospital. Ian is currently working at PF Changs filling several positions in hopes of working his way up to management and eventually the corporate end of the business. Nicole is pursuing a degree in Communication Sciences and Disorders at UT Austin with plans to become a speech-language pathologist.

Eric was a history buff with a bookcase full of military history books as well as reloading manuals and books focused on hunting and gun craft. His passion was anything guns, knives and hunting related; with a big dream to go on a safari hunt in Africa. Eric was a Patriot Life Member and Benefactor of the NRA, as well as the Corpus Christi Gun Club where he loved to practice target shooting. He also loved the Get Fuzzy, Pearls Before Swine, and Dilbert comics and had online subscriptions to them all. Outside of these hobbies, Eric loved spending time with the family’s four dogs. He was a hard worker and the dogs were always by his side to “help” with the workload even on grueling days. Eric also took great joy in being a deacon at his church, Corpus Christi Bible Church.

Eric was preceded in death by his father, Ronald Leeton. He is survived by his loving wife of almost 26 years, Cheryl (nee Gagne) of Corpus Christi; children, Ariel, Ian, and Nicole; mother, Elisabeth Leeton; siblings, Scott Leeton (Sandra), and Brian Leeton (Margaret); as well as numerous aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, nephews, and nieces.

In lieu of flowers donations may be made in memory of Eric A. Leeton to the Cancer Research Institute, and designated for Sarcoma Research. www.cancerresearch.org