Lance Donald Nesbitt passed away April 23, 2015, peacefully at home after enduring many years of service related illness. He was preceded in death by his mother, Dorothy Grace Nesbitt Grant, from Orchard Park, NY and his father, Donald Nesbitt of Oxnard, CA.
Survivors include his wife of almost 39 years, Ramona Maria Samudio; sons, Patrick Lance Nesbitt and Justin Christopher Nesbitt and wife, Casey Neill; granddaughter, Fatima Grace A. Nesbitt, of Nashville, TN; sister, Dona Lynn Fuller and husband, William, of Alameda, CA; and sister, Vicky Nesbitt Palor and husband, Louis, of Las Vegas.
Lance was born at Mercy Hospital in Buffalo, NY, and grew up in Depew, NY until moving to Orchard Park, NY in 1952. He graduated from The Hill High School in Pennsylvania, graduated from Rutgers University in Logistics Engineering and Language, and received his MBA from Central Michigan University. He served in the Air Force and was stationed in South Korea, Vietnam, Paraguay, Germany and Venezuela. He was also stationed in Washington DC, where he worked at the Pentagon for four years prior to his assignment to Paraguay. In Paraguay, he served in the USMIL group as a Maintenance Advisor. Later, in Germany, he worked with CSL and the F-16 activation in Europe and as a TAFT Commander in Venezuela, until 1983 when he retired. He worked for Boeing for eighteen years in various programs, including the International Space Station.
Lance spoke excellent Spanish, which he learned as a teenager living a summer abroad in Spain. In college, two of his majors were Russian and Spanish, as well as studying at the Defense Language Institute, before his assignment to Paraguay, where he met his wife, Maria.
He was an avid swimmer, loved to play golf and woodwork. He was an excellent and loving father and husband, and was a generous soul.
A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday, May 4, at Good Shepherd Catholic Church with Father Louis Giardino officiating.
In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the Wounded Warriors Project or the Paralyzed Veterans of America.
