Obituary: R. Richard Bartsch Oct. 26, 1940 – Nov. 20, 2020
Oct. 26, 1940 – Nov. 20, 2020
Richard Bartsch dedicated his life to peering into the building blocks of matter and energy that power the stars and savoring fresh air with friends and family beneath the open sky.
Over a decades-long career as an electrical engineer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the nation’s premier nuclear research center, he authored or co-authored more than 90 research papers on energy and nuclear fusion and collaborated with scientists in Japan and Russia.
He died at home in Sequim, Washington Nov. 20, 2020, surrounded by family after a four-year battle with cancer. He was 80.
Known as Rick or Dick, he led a team of physicists experimenting with plasma and pulsed power as part of fusion research at the Controlled Thermonuclear Research Division at Los Alamos.