John Andrew Dalessandro

OBITUARY

John Andrew Dalessandro (February 24, 1946 – November 13, 2024) passed away in his San Diego area home, surrounded in love by his two daughters. John had suffered heart failure for many years and ultimately succumbed to its plight. John arrived in Del Mar in 1975 and had made it his home with his now-deceased wife of 52 years, Joyce. He had a long and successful career in mechanical engineering.

Originally from New York, John grew up in Maspeth, Queens in an Italian family. His love for engineering and technology became clear at a young age with his constant interest in disassembling, building, and fixing anything he could get his hands on. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School and went on to an undergraduate education at the Cooper Union. John continued on for his Ph.D. from Cornell University. It was there that he met and fell in love with Joyce.

After graduation John was recruited out of New York to California. John and Joyce were enchanted by San Diego on that first recruiting visit, and he began work at General Atomics fusion energy program shortly after. He later worked for General Dynamics on superconducting magnets and the Super Collider. Next he joined Archimedes Technologies to work on electromagnetics and reducing nuclear waste. His career came full circle, ending where it began. He once again was working at General Atomics in magnetic analysis. Projects included the Rail Gun and Aircraft Carrier pulse magnetic launch system. He was quiet and gentle, but proud of the work that he accomplished. John is remembered by his coworkers as the “best of them”–if John could not figure it out, no one could. John retired in 2021, after a long and successful career. After retirement, John continued to spend his free time in his favorite place doing his favorite thing, building and fixing in his garage.

John was an involved father to his daughters and grandfather to his 6 grandchildren. His legacy will live on with his many teachings to the family. His unparalleled strengths were both scientific and creative thinking. He was notorious for encouraging everyone to “think outside the box.”

A small family celebration of life was held over the Thanksgiving holiday time. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, friends and loved ones please consider donating to the Annual Fund for Engineering at his esteemed college, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, in his name, the same as he had done for his entire adult life: https://cooper.edu/.

John is survived by his daughters, Amy Kronk (husband Andrew Kronk) and Summer Dalessandro (husband Adam Vincent), as well as his six grandchildren: Audrey, Mia, and Bradley Kronk and Ali, Jack, and Talia Vincent who will uphold his memory by passing on the stories he shared and the values he lived by every day.