Roger Giellis

Roger Giellis, of Denver, Colorado passed away on April 19, 2021.

Funeral Mass is on Thursday, May 6, 2021 at 11:30am at St. Vincent de Paul, 2375 E Arizona Ave, Denver, CO 80210.

A Celebration of Life for Roger will follow the services from 1-4 PM at the Giellis Home (642 S. Corona Street, Denver, CO, 80209). Food and refreshments will be served. All are welcome.

Roger Giellis was a devoted husband to his wife Jeannie, the best father in the world to his children Jen and Chris, a second father to Jen’s husband Dave and Chris’s wife Jamie, and a loving grandfather to Jackson. The most common words people use to describe Roger are friend, kind, caring, gentle, and…. tall. He spent much of his life being asked “how’s the weather up there?” and Jeannie mastered the art of shopping for shirts with extra-long sleeves.

Roger was born in Dubuque, Iowa to George and Adele Giellis. He grew up with his brothers George, Ray, and Tim, and sister Sue. As a boy, he played baseball and basketball. His family had a cottage on the Platte River in Wisconsin… a wonderful place for childhood adventures: fishing, swimming, boating, and hunting. Often, with one of the 12 Freiburger children.

A hard worker all his life, one of Roger’s first jobs was at the Freiburger dairy, and baling hay on the Kirchberg farm. Roger’s brother Tim and sister Sue remembered how he skipped school during the last week of classes at Wahlert High School his senior year. He went fishing with Joe Freiburger. Even though Roger graduated with honors, he couldn’t graduate with his class until he wrote the Wahlert handbook. Among his brother Tim’s favorite memories is watching the 1969 moon landing with Roger and their Dad, with Roger explaining what was going on as they shared that momentous occasion.

Roger attended Loras College in Dubuque, and graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Detroit, a Jesuit school. He won the Hughes Aircraft Graduate Fellowship to UCLA where he did postgraduate studies while working for Hughes. He met lifelong friends Fred Orland, Ralph Vitagliano, and Ed McElearney at UD, and Rob Windhorst at Hughes. They all lived together in the LA area.

When Roger moved to Denver in the late 1960s, he worked at Martin Marietta and his career in the exploration of space began. Among the friends Roger made at Martin Marietta was Phil Vigil (who thought Roger would be a good basketball player for the Martin team!). Phil’s wife Marta, was a Spanish teacher at Bear Creek High School with Jeannie Werner. Roger and Jeannie met on a blind date arranged by these two good friends, and married in Phil and Marta’s backyard on November 17, 1973. Daughter Jennifer was born in 1975, followed by Chris in 1976.

Roger and Jeannie made their home in a west Washington Park bungalow where they lived for almost 48 years. Roger loved to garden, nurture his peach tree, grill, and work on the house. But most of all, he loved being a husband and father. For example, every Christmas Roger tirelessly helped to frost Jeannie’s gingerbread and cut-out sugar cookies (he would later teach his grandson Jackson these skills). Then he happily delivered plates of cookies to family and friends. Roger taught his son Chris to ski and to appreciate the mountains with camping trips, while also spending many hours working on school projects or just playing in the garage. Roger passed his love of reading on to his daughter Jen; one of her cherished childhood memories is of Roger reading Huckleberry Finn to her. Roger was more than a husband and father - he always had time for all the children in his life and many of Jen and Chris’ friends recall their own beloved memories of Roger.

When their grandson Jackson came into Roger and Jeannie’s lives, they were both changed forever. They took care of him 2-3 days a week beginning at 4 months. Roger, along with Jeannie, loved to spend time with Jackson: going to Washington Park to play on the playground, riding light rail downtown, going to the stock show parades, riding bikes, working puzzles, and watching Jackson play football, baseball, and basketball, and participate in swim team events.

Roger, with Jeannie, also loved to be with their friends, having cookouts in the summer as well as New Year’s and birthday get-togethers. Roger was hard-working and selfless: helping his kids, friends and neighbors with anything they needed - planting trees, transplanting roses, building fences, troubleshooting old house issues.

Careerwise, Roger contributed to many aspects of American space exploration from the late 1960s to the 2000s. He helped develop the thermal shield of the Mars Viking Lander, worked on the Skylab program, the Space Based Laser, and some classified programs that contributed to national security. In the 1990s, he was the thermal engineering lead for the Stardust Sample Return Capsule. After launching in 1999 and collecting comet particles, this first-of-its kind mission returned with its valuable samples to Earth in 2006. With Roger’s help, this was the first return to Earth of samples from anywhere other than the moon. The capsule is currently in the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

After his Stardust experience, Roger continued to work on Earth return capsules, including Genesis, which launched in 2001. In 1991 he was invited to go to Moscow as part of a US/USSR aerospace exchange program, and enjoyed hosting Russian engineers when they came to Denver. He retired as a senior staff engineer in the Thermophysics Section from Lockheed Martin in 2002. He next worked as a consultant for Muniz Engineering alongside good friend Mike Connolly, doing the heat shield thermal design for the Curiosity rover which landed on Mars in 2012.

Roger and Jeannie loved to visit family and friends in Wisconsin, Iowa, Arizona, California, North Carolina, Florida, Texas and beyond. They also loved to travel globally, often with dear friends, including trips to Costa Rica, China, Hawaii, Japan, Spain, the Baltic, Russia, Scandinavia, France, England, Italy, Germany and South America among other destinations. Roger enjoyed planning all the details of their adventures, finding places to see and stay. One destination on their list they never made it to was Mt. Rushmore, but Roger probably has a great view from Heaven.

With Jeannie, Roger was active in St. Vincent de Paul Church, including with their Respect Life committee, where he participated in prayer and mass activities outside Planned Parenthood and the March for Life at the Capitol, and pitched in wherever needed. Lee Ann Rodgers, head of Respect Life at St. Vincent’s, knew she could always count on him. When Jim Hamblin, parishioner at St. Vincent’s needed someone to take his place at Jewell Care Center, Roger helped out. He distributed the Eucharist and helped with the prayer service alongside other volunteers for the nursing home residents.

Roger worked tirelessly on his daughter-in-law Jamie’s campaign for mayor of Denver. He spent hours walking Denver’s neighborhoods, knocking on doors, distributing signs, supporting Jamie at events, and anything else he could do to help get out the vote. He also lent his talents to the Denver Republicans (yes, there are some!) and knocked on doors and sent text messages to voters on behalf of local candidates. He was so often behind the scenes, but always ready to help a friend, a worthy cause, a family member or a neighbor.

Roger was blessed with many dear friends and he treasured his time with them, especially in light of Covid and during his fight with cancer. While he endured his cancer treatments, these wonderful people bolstered his spirits with thoughtful gifts, emails, texts, cards, calls and Zooms. His wife Jeannie and family are very grateful for their love and caring.

Roger Giellis left his mark on the world. His life was one of kindness, love, patience, service to family, friends, and church. He will always be with us, especially when we honor him with our own acts of kindness, gentleness, love or patience. Or, when we help a friend or a stranger, when we hug our loved ones, frost a cookie, trim a tree, and when we stand tall for what we believe in.

Life is fragile and precious, from the womb to the last breath. We are thankful to the Good Lord for Roger’s presence in our lives.

Roger is survived by his wife of nearly 48 years, Jeannie Giellis, his daughter Jen Garner and her husband Dave Garner; his son Chris Giellis and his wife Jamie Giellis and grandson Jackson Giellis; his brother Tim Giellis, his sister Sue Hagerty and husband Will and children Tim Hagerty and Kevin Hagerty. In lieu of flowers, his family would be honored if you make a donation in his name to Step Denver (www.stepdenver.org), the Leukemia Lymphoma Society (www.lls.org), or the Alliance Defending Freedom (www.adflegal.org).

Please share memories of Roger and condolences with his family by signing the Tribute Wall above.