John "Sandy" Alexander Channing Buckland

March 31, 1921 – March 25, 2018

An amazing man, full of boundless energy, curiosity, intelligence, creativity, wit, and love, John lived a full life. Having many talents and interests, John was, among other avocations, an early conservationist, and a pioneer in the computer industry. He was a strong Christian, the source of much of his joy, love, and peace. Even in his later years, after he and Miram moved to the retirement home, he maintained his dignity, good humor and wisdom. He was known as “Mr. Sunshine” for his cheery nature, and for breaking into song in the hallways, or dining room, or wherever he happened to be.

An avid outdoorsman, Sandy met Miram Renwick at the Varsity Outdoor Club when he was a student at the University of British Columbia. They fell in love and were married on December 17, 1942. They spent over 70 years together until she passed away in 2014.

How John Came To Be Called Sandy:

John was born in Vancouver, BC, the youngest in a family of 7 children that had recently moved from New Zealand. Called ‘Jackie’ by his family for the first few years of his live, on his first day of school, the teacher asked him what he would like to be called. ‘Sandy’ he said. Try as he might, he could not reclaim his given name ‘John’ until 2012.

The Early Years:

A successful cattle breeder in New Zealand, John’s father, Channing, became a successful real estate investor and grain merchant after he moved the family to Vancouver. Channing was quite successful until the Great Depression caused an abrupt change in circumstances. He moved the family to Wildwood Farm, which was very difficult for the parents, Channing and Gertrude (called ‘Billie’), as well as his sisters, Betty and Molly. However, the move opened up many new experiences to Sandy and his brother Don.

Sandy was always very active physically. He and brother Don biked 5 miles to school every day. They formed a group, The Knights of the Iron Steeds, and biked with them over 10,000 miles in 10 years. The group’s claim to fame? When the Pattullo Bridge was opened over the Fraser River in 1937, they cut ahead of the Premier of the Province and his procession, and became the first to cross the bridge. They all had fun, and were not arrested.

Using plans from the British magazine, “The Scout”, Sandy and Don built a sailing kayak. Only having their bikes to move the thing, they fashioned a Kayak Karrier that attached to Don’s bike. They had many adventures in their kayak.

Sandy’s deep love of nature was expressed when he and his brother Don became Boy Scouts together. After his brother left the troop, Sandy became a Lone Scout so he could finish his First Class Badge. Sandy supported Scouting all his life and was so proud when both of his sons became Eagle Scouts.

In 1934, Don and Sandy founded the League of Conservationists. They were immersed in nature study and conservation of birds, animals, fish, and forests. They corresponded with famous conservationists, developed an educational center and sanctuary. They printed a newsletter and produced yearly traveling exhibits of nature lore to encourage conservation. Avidly interested in fire-fighting, they also joined the Junior Forest Wardens of the Canadian Forestry Association and were give hand-pumps and other fire-fighting equipment to use as they extinguished some local fires.

To the Pentagon for WWII:

Sandy graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1943 and went straight into the Canadian Army. Trained in the Unexploded Bomb Disposal (UXB) unit in the Canadian Army, he had the ‘good fortune’ (really) of suffering an attack of appendicitis. When he recovered, his unit had shipped out to Europe. There was an opening in the Intelligence Corps as Canadian Liaison to the United States. So the Canadian Army shipped Sandy and Miram to Washington, D.C. He was given Top Secret clearance and spent the rest of the war working on the Japanese Order of Battle for the Canadian Army and Joint Forces at the Pentagon.

Sandy returned to UBC after the War to take a Masters degree in 1947. He then went on to Penn State and earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering.

Shell Development to Shell Oil:

Upon graduation, with a poor job market in Canada, Sandy parlayed his PhD thesis, in Vacuum Distillation, Liquid-Liquid Extraction, into a research job at Shell Development Company in California. His work in Liquid-Liquid Extraction has been used extensively in Petroleum Refining, as well as by the Atomic Energy Commission.

In 1954, Sandy and Miram became U.S. citizens. Living in Walnut Creek, California, Sandy and Miram decided they wanted their own house for raising their growing family, so Sandy, ever resourceful, built a house for all of us.

Shell Oil saw an opportunity in the growing field of computers, but very few who had any expertise in the field. They recruited Sandy, sent him to NYC to train, and put him in charge of the computer installation at the Anacortes, WA, refinery.

In 1958, Shell Oil moved Sandy to NYC to be head of Operations Research, and the family moved to Princeton, NJ. During that period, Sandy became part of SHARE, a consortium of the five major oil companies, to develop a computer program designed to efficiently move oil through the refining and shipping process. The program the group developed was Simplex Linear programming, which is still in wide use today.

Following that success, Shell made him Supervisor of Mathematical Methods in the Standards and Techniques Department. He was quite the sensation at Shell Headquarters. With a brilliant, young Chinese gentleman, a woman as project manager, a black man from Kenya, and a man from Hungary, among others, some called his department the “United Nations of Shell Oil”. After a few years he began seeing more opportunity in the computer world, Sandy moved to the Univac Data Processing Centers in Data Processing and Operations Research.

Sandy became interested in the entrepreneurial space, so he joined a venture to develop a cross-tabulation (spreadsheet) program and a computerized income tax system. Unfortunately, he was about 15 years early with those programs as computers were not in wide enough use to make this venture profitable.

Sandy then was hired by PepsiCo to be Director of Corporate Systems and Data Processing. They moved him into the new PepsiCo World Headquarters, and the family moved to Connecticut.

But Sandy was never one for corporate politics, and all his experience made him somewhat of a computer guru, so he moved on and spent the last twelve years of his career in speaking, consulting and writing books. He was editor and principal author of twelve large management manuals in the computer field, of seven published books, and of at least fifty, widely-distributed technical reports on subjects of interest to data processing management.

Genealogy, Traveling and Retirement:

Sandy and Miram were very interested in their family, in genealogy, and in traveling. Every summer they took the family on vacations all over the United States, including Alaska, camping, hiking, swimming, and exploring. They began to write a series of books about the ancestral family, the ‘Mirandy Series’. Of course, that meant they ‘had to’ travel to the places their families had lived—Australia, New Zealand, all over Canada, the Orkney Islands, Scotland, Great Britain. They also traveled to Kiev, Ukraine, with the IESC in 1990, to help train the newly-liberated executives and teachers in Capitalism. They also traveled to Machu Picchu, Lima, and Cusco, Peru, to the Great Wall of China, to Hong Kong, to Germany, Italy, Amsterdam, St. Croix, and many other places.

They enjoyed dancing, whale watching, cross country skiing, archeology, hiking, camping, gardening, nature study, sailing, and long walks. They were amazing birders, counting over 500 lifetime species!

Having visited their two daughters in Colorado several times over the years for skiing, in 2003 they moved to a lovely house in Fort Collins, Colorado. The house was not landscaped so Sandy landscaped the entire place! Feeling the need to truly retire, in 2011 they moved the The Hillcrest of Loveland. After Miram passed away in 2014, grandson Bryan moved in to take care of his grandfather, and did an amazing job of allowing Sandy, now John, to have a great quality of life for his remaining semi-active years.

His Family:

Daughter Marilynne Buckland Tarrall (married to M.T. “Hony” Tarrall)

Son Arthur Renwick Buckland (married to Eunice Chen Buckland)

Grandson Marc Chen Buckland

Son Kenneth John Buckland (married to Nicolette Currier Buckland)

Grandson Bryan Kenneth Buckland (engaged to Barbara Patricia Montano)

Grandson Adam Channing Buckland (married to Kathleen Kucharski Buckland)

Great Grandson Maxwell Channing Buckland

Great Grandson Samuel Alexander Buckland

Daughter Daphne Miram Goodwin (married to Johnnie Dwayne Goodwin)

His Faith:

Sandy’s life always pointed to his faith in God. He was a Sunday School Teacher at many of the churches they joined, and an Elder on Session at five Presbyterian Churches over the years. Joining Westminster Presbyterian Church, in his late 80s, he decided that it was okay if he retired from church work as well.

He had a deep faith in God and accepted Jesus as his Savior. As much as he truly enjoyed living, he did not fear dying, knowing that he would find eternal peace in heaven and soon be walking with Miram, and Jesus. In the last months of his life, he sang, as he always did. Near the end he began singing one of his favorites more often—“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.” He is home now.