Dennis Kardell, who died Feb. 12, was a native Californian born on March 20, 1939, and raised in Long Beach. He attended a small, Catholic high school in Downey and much of his early life and high school weekends were spent in the Lake Matthews area, near Corona, where he participated in training and competing in field trials with beagles. He stated many time that these field trials were the highlight of his early life.

After graduating from high school, Dennis attended St. Benedict’s College in Atchison, KS, St. Mary’s College in Moraga and completed his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Los Angeles State College.

In the 1960s, the aerospace industry in Southern California was booming, and Dennis with his new degree in hand, headed to work for the autonetics division of North American Aviation. He found his way to the IBM Mainframe Computer Group and held various positions in programming, software, systems and management. This computer experience was invaluable, and he then went to Mackley Wood, a software company.

This software expertise lead to a position as director of operations for the Long Beach City Computer Group. The best thing, however, that resulted from the Long Beach job was the fact that it was there he met his wife, Vicki.

Soon, the challenge was gone from the Long Beach City computer job and Dennis made the move to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, where he took up the new challenge of directing the Deep Space Network Antenna prorgram, which was responsible for tracking of US orbiting satellites.

In 1990, he retired early from JPL, moved to Mariposa with Vicki and started his new life as a gentleman rancher. Once in Mariposa, he was asked many times what he did for a living. He would always say, “It doesn’t matter. Now I own a small horse ranch and shovel horse manure.”

He really loved it in Mariposa, the shoveling, the clearing of brush, the setting of fence posts, the building of horse corrals and the raising of the barn. He enjoyed it all.

Dennis is survived by his wife, Vicki; a brother, Gene; daughter, Robin Perry; sons, Stephen and Kevin; three stepchildren, Dawn Proeber, Cindy Henshaw and Kim Bittner; and seven grandchildren.

No services will be held.