Bill Randall Randall was one hell of a man.

Born in El Paso Texas, Raised by his Mother Buela Corum Randall a single mother and businesswoman that made her living as a seamstress. Pop had the privilege of being an extremely well dressed young boy, something that he spent the rest of his life compensating for.

He grew up in El Paso with his sister Lou. Lou still lives in Albuquerque and couldn't be here but my Cousin Buffy is right over there.

He started College at the Colorado School of Mines but transferred to the University of Texas where he received a PhD in chemical engineering. Which according to Vee made him both a philosophical engineer and a comical engineer, both terms made in jest but still relevant.

Somewhere in the process of starting a professional career he met and married Virginia Lee Vaught. They had four children, three of whom you see here. Our Brother Richard died in a motor cycle accident in 1970. This coming May Bill and Vee would have been married for 60 years.

Bill Randall Randall was an intellectual with the sensibilities of straight forward common man.

He was a hard working man

He was a hard drinking man

He was a pugnacious, stubborn, difficult, and loveable man that I am more than a little proud of.

There is no way that we can do him justice but Cindy Mike and I will spend a few minutes to try to give you some sense of what we knew of our father. I hope that we can do this in a way that does not mourn his loss but rejoices his life with all of his faults, triumphs, irreverence, and magnificence.

Bill Randall Randall was a proud man with much to be proud of:

He was articulate

He was corny

He was funny

My Dad had a number of mannerisms, catch phrases and pithy statements that we have come to know as Bill Randallisms here are a select few of them:

Mike: Give me luck every time, you can use snot for brains.

Cindy: Boy, am I glad that I am not young anymore. That was hard.

John: One measure of intelligence is the ability to overcome one's brainwashing.

Mike: I always travel with a bottle of Tabasco sauce.

Cindy: You can eat anything if you put a little Tabasco sauce on it.

John: It also acts as a disinfectant.

Mike: You sure are a good cook!

Cindy: Stick with me kid.

Mike: Yeah , I know, it coulda been a lot worse, I almost spilled my drink....

Cindy: Lets get drunk and be somebody.

John I don't drink because of the way the bourbon tastes. I drink for the way it makes me feel.

Mike The fusil oils in cheap bourbon keep you regular.

Cindy: They never made a bad beer.

John: The perversity of inanimate objects tends to a maximum.

Mike: Sure you can!

Cindy: Well, what if we tried it this way?

John: Could you do it if your life depended on it?

Mike: Ok, the god damned thing quit. Do you want to throw the first rock? or can I?

Cindy: Back when I was a little girl, . . .

John: A college degree is just a job hunting license.

Mike: No you can't go to the triple feature drive in

Cindy: Halitosis is better than no breath at all.

John: A good engineer will always find a job.

Mike: ok, when I hit the wall, instead of spanking you, I scream real loud!

Cindy Ian obeys about as well as the cat. And Cindy, your dog minds better than your kids.

John: You are a good boy. Now go empty the cat box.

Mike: We laughed so hard we fell off the fence!

Cindy: I wonder what the poor people are doing?

John: Most of our understanding about the universe is based on the belief that the speed of light is constant throughout the universe. But what if it was not?

Mike: With 50 employees or less, you can run a very tight ship. Over 50, inefficiency starts to creep in.

Cindy: Be sure to take care of your people, and they will take care of you.

John: In the future when asking what happened to all of the natural gas on the planet, the answer in retrospect will be: The fools burned it all!

Mike: How are your doing Bill? ( John) Not as good as you!

Cindy: Hello Miss America.

John You are beautiful! (Cindy) Thank You (John) Don't thank me thank your mother.

My father was not a good teacher. He would explain things in a simple and straightforward manner that made sense to him, and if you didn't get it, he was impatient.

BUT he taught by example. He worked hard. He always wanted to do something productive. He did not complain. He aimed high. He was not pretentious. He enjoyed life. He was loyal. He made it clear that life was not fair but did his best to treat everyone as fairly as he could.

He was a results oriented man who never-the-less cared about the journey taken to get those results. He was honest He cared about people. He directly contributed to more than a dozen young peoples college education.

He was NOT easy to please.

When in high school I brought home a report card that I was very proud of it was 5 As and a B. When I showed him this report card he looked at it and said 'you are going to have to do something about that B.' Jesus Christ Pop, I responded. If I bring an all A report card your are going to complain that they are not all A+. He replied That's right. I said that is not fair! This means that you will never be satisfied. He said I am not trying to be fair. If I don't keep raising the bar how do we know how high you can jump?

I have had friends tell me that this was him being cruel. I beg to differ, this was tough love.

Long before make before I gained the experience and wisdom to accept the gift that life gave me in the form of my life's love and wife for the past 26 years the beautiful, intelligent, loving and delectable Patrice Marie Teresa Stepchinski Randall, As I said a long time ago when at a particularly painful and difficult time in my life as a young adult making the inevitable mistakes that a young man will and suffering from the choices that I made, I sought the advise of my father, and asked for guidance. He replied that He had an opinion, but that his opinion was not important. I was a man now and I had to make my own decisions. It was the best advice that I have ever received.

My Dad was an entrepreneur. Many of you knew him through the founding of the Randall Corporation, but before that he founded the S&R Oil Company shortly after he graduated from the University of Texas. S&R reclaimed motor oil which made him a very early environmentalist. After that he worked for several other companies always striving for efficiency and value.

When he first started work for a large company, he was so proficient and eager to accomplish things that that they could not keep him busy. When he asked for more work, he was told to read the latest trade journals. Not satisfied with such a passive role, he started to analyze the cost of equipment purchased in previous jobs. When he started to point out to management some embarrassing discrepancies in the price paid for similar equipment is different jobs. . . , management decided that it was better to keep him busy.

With respect to the Randall Corporation: He had an idea, founded a company, attracted a remarkable group of extremely competent engineers and revolutionized the way that natural gas plants worked and the way that they were built. He was a pioneer and a giant in the natural gas processing industry.

While this brief and bold assessment of his professional career that Mike just recited is one that I concur with it was in fact given to me a couple of years ago by an engineer that I never met before that used to work for a competitor of the Randall Corporation.

Pop was never entirely satisfied with the Randall Corporation but he was proud of it and he loved the work.

Speaking of love, he was not quick to proclaim love. I know that there were a few things that he loved passionately. He loved knowledge, he loved accomplishing things, he loved his children. But more than anything else he proclaimed in words and actions his love for his wife, my mother Vee. I know that He loved her deeply and passionately. I know this because I heard him tell her this on a regular basis. I know this because he would tell me when she was not around how deeply that he loved her. But most of all I know this because of the way he looked at her, talked about her, and (most of the time) the way he treated her.

Mike: He was not subtle,
Cindy: Yet at his best
John: He was sublime.