William Robert Nodell passed away peacefully after a long illness in Redmond, Wash. He was 87. Bill, a beloved retired commander in the U.S. Coast Guard, was born in Brooklyn on Dec. 7, 1927 and died April 23, 2015. He is survived by his wife, Shirley; brother, Eugene; children, Todd and Bobbi; grandchildren, Dennis and Scott; and great grandchildren, Sydney and Ashton. He is preceded in death by his oldest son, Scott. Funeral services will be held at 4 p.m. May 17 at St. Margaret’s Church in Bellevue, 4228 Factoria Blvd. S.E.
Bill Nodell was born to William George and Viola Wesner Nodell, two years before the Great Depression (1929-1939). His one sibling, Eugene Nodell, was born seven years later. Bill looked to education for making his way through life. He received a scholarship to Regis, a Catholic high school on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan, then the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) for a master’s of science in naval architecture and marine engineering.
After graduating from the Coast Guard Academy in 1950 as an ensign, he was sent to Monterey, Calif., then returned to Boston, 
where he met his wife, Shirley, who was a student at Boston University. He took the ship Storis to Alaska before entering MIT in 1954 for a three-year program to become a naval engineer. He said some of his instructors were the ones who were sent to a secluded location to create the jet engine during WWII and it was at MIT that he wrote a thesis on diesel engines.
He and Shirley wed on June 6, 1955, at the Coast Guard Academy chapel in New London, Conn., and had adopted three children by 1966 – Scott, Bobbi and Todd.
During his 20 years in the U.S. Coast Guard, Bill went from Boston to Baltimore, back to Boston, then Seattle and Port Angeles, Wash., and, finally, Governor’s Island, New York, where he retired in 1970. He worked on various line and engineering capacities on board Coast Guard cutters in Atlantic, Pacific and Alaskan waters. He also served in the production department of the Coast Guard yard in Curtis Bay, Maryland, and later the chief of the naval engineering branches of the 13th Coast Guard District in Seattle and the 3rd Coast Guard District in New York.
After the Coast Guard, Bill moved his family to Mission Viejo, California, where he spent two years at the Atlantic Research Corp. in Costa Mesa, where he liked to say he worked himself out of a job by designing the fastest offshore diesel boat that the U.S. Navy and the world had at that time. After he was laid off, he spent a year as a marine biology teacher at Saddleback Community College. Then he took a job at Lockheed Shipbuilding in Seattle, the place he would call home.
At Lockheed, he was a chief engineer building two U.S. Coast Guard icebreakers, the Polar Star and Polar Sea – the world’s largest icebreakers—along with other ships, including the USS McKee and the USS Whidbey Island. He was a member of the American Society of Naval Engineers, where he served as a past chairman of the Puget Sound chapter; the National Management Association, where he served as president of the local chapter; and the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers.
After 10 years with Lockheed, Bill took an early retirement when the shipyard shutdown. He joined his wife working for the Washington State Head Injury Foundation (now the Brain Injury Association), a nonprofit they helped found after a devastating car accident involving their oldest son, who lived with a brain injury for 12 years before he passed. He also consulted on the design and building of the USCGC Healy, the newest and most technologically advanced ice breaker at the time it was launched in 1997.
When he finally “retired retired” in the mid-1990s, Bill and Shirley took up traveling with a passion, going to more than a dozen 
countries. Bill always said he loved Australia and wanted to go back. He and Shirley also spent 15 years going to their favorite spot on Kauai, where Bill found a new hobby – lying in the sun and reading.
Bill was a guy who enjoyed much out of life, deflecting hardships, and forging ahead. He was grounded by his Episcopalian faith and his “old men’s club” from church has been together for 40 years. Bill could always be content with a good book, good food, good company and a baseball game, often remarking, “I’m a pig in mud,” when any of those elements were around. Bill also loved gardening — especially roses and tomatoes, fishing, 
playing bridge and discussing politics (with gusto). He and Shirley were never without a dog, starting with miniature schnauzers when they were first married, then an Airdale terrier and two Welsh terriers.
Bill was our family hero and rock who dazzled us with his brilliance and taught us much about faith, integrity and generosity. He was a good man Charlie Brown.
Written by Bobbi Nodell, May 1, 2015, with the help of Shirley Nodell and Todd Nodell.