Douglas Carl Hittle of Fort Collins died May 4, 2017. He was 70.
Doug was born in Fort Collins in 1947, and raised in Champaign, Ill., the oldest of a family of brothers. He spent time as a toddler in Costa Rica and as a young teen in Cambridge, England. He attended University of Illinois Laboratory High School and then the University of Illinois, earning a B.S. and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and an M.S. in environmental engineering. He married Anita Gayle Norris in 1969. They were married for 46 years and had two daughters.
He began his career as an engineer at Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois, and then worked for many years at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign, Ill. where he developed building energy modeling tools while getting his Ph.D. In 1986, he joined the faculty at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. In 1989, he returned to Fort Collins to become a professor of mechanical engineering and director of the Solar Energy Applications Laboratory at Colorado State University. He was a fellow of the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, and a recipient of many awards including the American Society of Mechanical Engineers International, Best Paper Award in 1996 and more recently the 2014 International Building Performance Simulation Association Achievement Award. He retired from CSU in 2010. He derived enormous joy and satisfaction from his work.
Doug’s family remembers him as cheerful and quick to laugh, though he took a few things seriously—among them his work, his wardrobe, and his woodworking hobby. He often played guitar and sang with his daughters before bedtime. Once they were older, he conscripted them, generally against their will, for weekend DIY projects. He loved travel adventures, good food, and Colorado’s mountains. He was prone to inventing words, befriending pets, and bonding with toddlers.
He is survived by daughters Jessica Marshall (Julian) of Seattle and Jocelyn Hittle of Denver; former wife Anita; grandchildren Abraham, Louisa, and Ronen Marshall; brothers David (Beth) of Lakewood, Donald (Alicia Trezise) of Champaign, Ill., and Craig, of Tacoma, Wash.; and many nieces and nephews. He was preceded in death by his parents Carl and Grace and brother Kenneth.
A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. on Friday, May 12th at Allnutt Funeral Home at 650 W. Drake Rd., Fort Collins. A visitation will be held from 4-6 p.m. on Thursday, May 11th at the same location.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be sent in memory of Doug Hittle to the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Colorado State University. You can make an online donation here https://advancing.colostate.edu/DOUGLASHITTLEMEMORIAL.
