Lloyd Arvel Adams

Lloyd Arvel Adams is the son of John Arvel Adams and Jeanette Fowler. He was born 20 Apr 1934 in Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California. Lloyd was really smart. He got straight A's which earned him a financial scholarship to a prestigious school in southern California. He was a shy person and almost didn't attend the college as he was afraid that people would make fun of him. However, his father finally convinced him to go, and he excelled in his courses. He was drafted into the army, and after boot camp, he was sent to Mexico to do some work with rockets. When he was done with his service, he was approached by a man from Cal Tech who knew of his work and wanted to hire him as a rocket scientist. Lloyd worked on designing cameras for unmanned space flights. His most notable accomplishment was helping to fix the Hubble telescope. He designed a camera to work with the faulty lens of the telescope.

Some of Lloyd's hobbies included photography and building model trains. He owned his own photography equipment and dark room. He was an artistic sort of person. He liked to sketch in his free time as well.

He was never married.

He died on 10 Jan 2009 in Murrieta, Riverside, California from liver cancer. He is buried in the Rose Hills Memorial Park in Whittier.

The above is taken from notes I jotted down while speaking to his brother.

His obituary is as follows:

Lloyd Adams, 74, of Murrieta, California, passed away peacefully at his home on Saturday January 10, 2009.

He was preceded in death by his parents; John Adams and Jeanette (Fowler) Adams. Lloyd was a Mechanical Engineer at JPL Cal Tech Pasadena for over 40 years. He worked on almost all of the unmanned space missions. His specialty was Optics. Lloyd was very proud to have been the one who came up with the plan to fix the Hubble Telescope.

He is survived by his brother John Adams and his sister Gail De Den. Lloyd was loved and respected by all who knew him. There will be a service at the Latter Day Saint Church on Washington St. in Murrieta, CA on Saturday, January 17th at 11:00am. The burial will be at Rose Hills Memorial Park later that day.


Published in the Press-Enterprise on 1/14/2009