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George Comstock, who managed to fit several lifetimes of achievements into his 95 years, died on March 11 at his beloved home in Portola Valley.
A celebration of his life will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 27, at Valley Presbyterian Church, 945 Portola Road in Portola Valley.
A pioneer in the computer industry, Comstock served as mayor of Portola Valley during his one term on the Town Council, and held a seat on the Architectural and Site Control Commission for eight years.
But, says Anne Hillman, his wife of 38 years, he did far more than that. Comstock “was always seeking new experiences, new adventures, new places, new learning,” she said. “I got to discover so many new things with him.”
Comstock was, Hillman said, a “pilot, inventor with 40 issued patents, entrepreneur, friend and ardent steward of the land” who also was a skilled woodworker, and loved sailing, motorcycle riding and outdoor activities including camping, canoeing and cross-country skiing. He also loved sharing those activities with friends and family, and teaching and mentoring others.
40 years of reading aloud
An avid reader, Comstock read aloud to Hillman every night for 40 years from books including biographies, the classics and authors from William Shakespeare to Wallace Stegner. In recent years Comstock began a poetry group at Rosener House Adult Day Services in Menlo Park, giving participants and himself a way to voice their feelings about their disabilities.
Hillman said her husband “never stopped inquiring into philosophies of all kinds in a lifelong search for meaning and greater understanding.” He attended a designer biology class at Stanford University until his last month of life.
Born on Jan. 9, 1924, in Canandaigua, New York, to Florence Rossling and George E. Comstock, George was 9 years old when a friend taught him to design, build and fly model airplanes. He co-published a neighborhood newspaper at 13.
After receiving bachelor’s degrees in mechanical and electrical engineering in 1945 and 1948 from the Worchester Polytechnic Institute and working for several companies on projects that failed to spark his imagination, Comstock jumped at the chance to move into the nascent computer industry in the mid-1950s. He joined the young Potter Instrument Company, which then had only 80 employees, as a vice president of research and engineering, working on a random-access memory system made from strips of tape on a steel frame, and on the tape drives used in the massive early computers.
In 1969 Comstock co-founded and served as president of Diablo Systems, which made interchangeable cartridge disk drives and daisy wheel printers. Hillman said her husband “always credited Andrew Gabor, PhD, his brilliant engineer,” for the daisy wheel invention. (Gabor and his wife, Hillman noted, escaped from Hungary in 1968 by swimming across the Danube.)
Diablo was purchased by Xerox Corp. three years later for $30 million.
In 1977 Comstock founded Durango Systems, manufacturing microprocessor-based, multi-user computers for small businesses. At Durango, where he served as president and chairman, Comstock promoted Angie Lux, one of the few women in the field at the time, to vice president of software development.
The last startup he worked for, from 1986 to 1992, was Network General Corp, which made diagnostic tools for local area networks. Comstock was so intrigued by the company’s product that he volunteered as a consultant before becoming the firm’s fourth employee, vice president of sales and marketing.
Len Shustek of Portola Valley, one of Network General’s founders, became a good friend. “In one lunchtime conversation (Comstock) might tell you about the canoe he was building, sing a song from a Broadway musical, explain the mathematical relationship between Pi and e, interpret Emily Dickenson’s poetry, tell why Bix Beiderbecke took up the coronet, describe the course he was taking at Stanford, and somehow make the story about how he crashed a seaplane be hilarious,” he said.
Hillman and Comstock met when she was a management consultant for Durango Systems. Despite an age difference of more than a decade, she says, they knew on their first date they were meant for each other.
Hillman’s first husband had died when he was only 35, and she had worked full time and raised two children alone for 10 years. Two years after meeting, with her oldest child off to college, they married. Hillman and Comstock moved to Ladera in 1980 and Portola Valley in 1990.
Recently Hillman’s daughter, Kathryn Gill, now a medical doctor in Topanga, California, wrote Comstock a note thanking him for “being my wonderful Step Dad.”
“I’ve learned so much watching you love, learn, work, play and BE,” Gill wrote. “I look up to how you’ve chosen to lead others, make your own company and be a really good friend.”
“I’ve watched you partner my mom with love, kindness, generosity and manly grace. You are my hero.”
Advocate for the environment
Among the passions Hillman and Comstock shared was an advocacy for the environment, particularly sustainable building. In 1991 they had the late architect Tad Cody design a small home to replace the larger structure on the property they had purchased in the Westridge neighborhood. The home and landscaping, designed to demonstrate sustainable living, included an organic vegetable garden and native plantings. Comstock supervised construction, using skills he’d learned by building three of his other homes himself.
He joined the board of the Land Institute and was tireless in encouraging Portola Valley to adopt regulations promoting sustainability, and he championed adding more affordable housing in the town.
A perpetual teacher, he started the popular annual “Flight Night” in Portola Valley, a nighttime aerial display of model planes that drew hundreds, offering hands-on learning in science, technology, engineering and math, and flight-related exhibitions.
Comstock was on the Portola Valley Town Council from 2001 until 2005. As he had often done in other areas of his life, he mentored his replacement.
Maryann Moise Derwin said Comstock recruited her to run for her council seat in 2005. Comstock, Derwin said, “shared his delight in serving in public office – finding consensus with colleagues, debating collegially, working on solutions with friends and neighbors, trying to make our corner of the world just a little bit better.”
“During the campaign, he prepped me for the candidate’s night,” Derwin said, “schooled me on town history and our deep environmental stewardship roots as enshrined in the Town General Plan.”
“His infectious enthusiasm, mentorship and unwavering support sustained and inspired me.”
Nate McKitterick, who served for 12 years on Portola Valley’s Planning Commission, said Comstock “introduced me to, and was my mentor for, public service.” He said he appreciated Comstock’s “dry and often self-deprecating humor.”
“I greatly benefited from his insights, advice (usually delivered using the Socratic method of asking questions), and encouragement. His devotion to both truth and kindness was an example,” McKitterick said.
Comstock is survived by wife Anne Hillman (also known by her professional name of Patricia H. Gill); his sister, Mel Goertz (Herb) of Vermont; children Charles (Betty) Comstock of Oregon, Leslie Comstock of Washington, Robert (Barbara) Comstock of Pleasanton, Kathryn Gill of Topanga, California, and Jeff Gill (Nancy Chung), of Brea, California; seven grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
He was preceded in death by his first wife, Kathryn Peddle Comstock, a photographer, painter and musician.
The family suggests that memorial donations be made to Rosener House, The Land Institute, the Computer History Museum, Peninsula Open Space Trust (POST), or any charity of choice.
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We’ll miss you, George.
George was a steadying hand for Anne and family when I met him, a welcome addition to our vacation
neighborhood in West Campton, NH for about 10 years until they decided to move their base of operations out West. He taught me among other things he never landed his plane on a grass field and he knew what every instrument on the dashboard of the plane was for. Ie, in my eyes he was the Real Deal. When they decided to move George walked up the long hill to my cabin and gave me his Honda guitar, instantly elevating my music making. Best of all, he was a great husband for a superbly talented widow and father for her two adventuresome children, a uniquely unpredictable fascinating addition for our lives.