Karl Anthony Madcharo

Karl Madcharo, 66, passed away of natural causes on April 4, 2023 at his residence in Laguna Niguel, California. The eldest child of Leonard K. and Magaret E. Madcharo, Karl was born on January 1, 1957 in the base hospital at Hamilton AFB, Novato, CA. After transfers to McClellan AFB in Sacramento and Offutt AFB, Nebraska, Karl graduated from Bellevue Sr. High School, and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Karl spent the majority of his Marine career at MCAS El Toro, with a detail as a Marine recruiter in New York City, and participated in the Persian Gulf conflict as an avionics specialist in Kuwait. After his 20 year career with the Marines Karl retired to Laguna Niguel where he worked as a quality control inspector for Fujitsu until its acquisition, and most recently at Neutronic of Corona, CA. Karl was interred with full honors on April 18th at Riverside National Cemetery.

Karl was preceded in death by his father Leonard Madcharo. He is survived by his mother, Margaret E. Grote, brothers Mike Madcharo (Kelly), Eric Madcharo, and David Madcharo, sisters Katherine Ridel (Alain), Paula DeJesus, and Sandra Madcharo, and nieces and nephews.

[Stan: please take over from here.] Karl shared a life-long love of airplane modeling with his father Leonard, and they would get together every year for the annual IPMS convention.

Karl Madcharo, 66, passed away of natural causes on April 4, 2023 at his residence in Laguna Niguel, California. The eldest child of Leonard K. and Magaret E. Madcharo, Karl was born on January 1, 1957 in the base hospital at Hamilton AFB, Novato, CA. After transfers to McClellan AFB in Sacramento and Offutt AFB, Nebraska, Karl graduated from Bellevue Sr. High School, and enlisted in the Marine Corps. Karl spent the majority of his Marine career at MCAS El Toro, with a detail as a Marine recruiter in New York City and participated in the Persian Gulf conflict as an avionics specialist in Kuwait. After his 20-year career with the Marines Karl retired to Laguna Niguel where he worked as a quality control inspector for Fujitsu until its acquisition, and most recently at Neutronic of Corona, CA. Karl was interred with full honors on April 18th at Riverside National Cemetery.

Karl was preceded in death by his father Leonard Madcharo. He is survived by his mother, Margaret E. Grote, brothers Mike Madcharo (Kelly), Eric Madcharo, and David Madcharo, sisters Katherine Ridel (Alain), Paula DeJesus, and Sandra Madcharo, and nieces and nephews.

Karl shared a life-long love of airplane modeling with his father Leonard, and they would get together every year for the annual IPMS convention. His father played a huge part of Karl’s love of the hobby, as well as his friends. Karl regularly met with a group of friends that came together after one of the IPMS chapters shut down. These friends, Bill Ladner, Mason Wood, Jim Hammond, Reed West and Steve Munroe, would get together two nights each month for dinner, then regroup at one of the member’s houses to work on models, talk and generally try to solve the nation’s problems. Karl was always willing to help if someone needed a “how to” to finish a build. There were countless times where Karl would come up with a spare part or even a whole kit to help one of the guys finish a project. He was also the go-to man for airbrush cleaning and repair.

This started about 25 years ago and was a regular thing up until the pandemic. Before the meetings came back there was an active sharing of tips, advice, and opinions via e-mail. Besides the meeting mentioned previously, they would all head out at various times haunt a hobby shop, or go to an air museum, or even sometimes get together with each other’s families like normal people. At the end of the December, the group would have a weekend lunch at Philly’s Best (cheese steak sandwiches, because Reed was from Philly) to close out the year. This tradition kept alive the memories of members who had passed and will be continued until the final member of the group has passed.

The other group of friends that Karl would regularly get together with for the last 20+ years are from South Orange County. The get-togethers first started a Saturday morning coffee and quickly evolved into getting breakfast on Saturday or Sunday mornings. This group of friends consisted of Stan Spooner, Jim Wechsler, Henry Tremblay, Fred Medel, as well as others. Sometimes we have a full house and other times it would just be Karl and a single friend. Regardless, Karl was there talking about the things that interested him and listening to the rest of us talk about or lives, our hobby and anything else that came up. He invested in his friends of his time and his treasure. We folded Karl into our family, gatherings, and holiday celebrations, making many memories over the years. In one way or another he was a part of all our lives, and he will be sorely missed.

Karl’s abilities weren’t just a part of his hobby, he was committed to doing the best that he could at work as well. His line of work was quality control, he worked for ICL Inc. (later Fujitsu Systems America) for several years, from 1997 to 2008. Later he performed the same roll at Neutronic Stamping and Plating from 2012 through this year. It was said of Karl by the management staff of Neutronics, “Karl was very knowledgeable and was eager to teach, often taking new employees under his wing. Karl had a great sense of humor and kept things lite when under stress.” Karl was highly respected for his work and his principles at both companies.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.fairhavenmemorialservices.com for the Madcharo family.