Allen Hoffman Brown

Allen Hoffman Brown

March 2, 1931-June 13, 2026

A legend has left us. My funny, brilliant, outrageous, principled, generous, honest, opinionated, loyal, heroic dad passed away peacefully on June 13. Ever the detailed engineer and mathematician, he wrote his own obituary in advance. It is a list of dates and accomplishments: Chief Avionic Engineer for the F117 Stealth fighter and the C17 transport, world traveler, author. But the checklist leaves out the essence of the man, which is so much more.

He was the most honest and principled person. He despised liars, thieves, imposters, predators--any form of dishonesty or cruelty. He lived up to his own ethics and high standards, and demanded the same of his family.

However, he was anything but stuffy or self-righteous. The man was the life of the party. He loved a good and prank, and would regularly provoke reactions from family and strangers. He challenged everyone to not take themselves too seriously. For his 94th birthday, he passed out cards requesting gifts of Viagra, marijuana, and Colace. A lifelong photographer, he learned Photoshop and delighted in putting friends' faces on bodies of popular or historical figures. He made memes before social media memes became a thing. He was a huge joke collector, party game planner, and everyone's favorite rascal.

He was a self-made man who valued hard work and self-motivation as the key to success. He demanded that his children and colleagues apply themselves to the best of their abilities. However, he was also beyond generous to those less fortunate, or those whose lives had delivered them a bum turn. When retired to the Oregon Coast, he became an Oregon State Police volunteer, keeping watch over coastal state parks that inevitably drew folks with nowhere to go: families with broken down vehicles, abandoned women, the homeless and disenfranchised. Rather than just reporting on these situations, he would regularly use his own money to buy them a room at a nice hotel for a respite from their troubles, and give them neatly typed lists of community resources and social services. In his later years, this generosity made him a target of numerous scams. Still, he felt the duty to help less fortunate fellow humans.

He loved his family, and made every effort for his children and grandchildren to grow up to be good citizens, self-reliant, ethical, compassionate, and joyful. After his wife Suzanne passed away in Oregon in 2008, he moved to Santa Fe to be close to his daughter Natalie and her family. He picked up his grandchildren from school every day, taught them chess and cribbage. and card games and mancala. He supported them in the 4H livestock projects, taking hundreds of photos of all the youths every year at the Santa Fe County Fair and giving away prints to all the families. When his granddaughters enrolled in the NM School for the Arts, he supported local music organizations (Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Santa Fe Symphony and Youth Symphony, ProMusica, etc) plus was a donor to homeless shelters, food banks, veterans services, and the Animal Shelter. He made his community better.

He is survived by his daughter Natalie Baca (Phil Baca) and their daughters Ellie Putz (Austin Putz), Julia Baca Wiseley (Keith Wiseley), and Lila Baca (Samuel Reyes), plus great-grandchildren Aiden Putz, Harper Putz, Emi Reyes Baca, and soon-to-arrive Baby Wiseley.

The man may have left this earth, but he will live on in the memories of all who knew him or chanced to meet him. Go forth and make someone smile, or do a good deed in his memory.