It’s a good thing that Cal Poly Pomona professor Thomas A. Burdick taught writing and communication skills to engineering students instead of engineering—they might not have learned much otherwise.

“He was teaching communication arts to engineers so that they could write something that non-engineers could understand,” explained his wife, Jocelyn Lyon Burdick, a retired Mountain View Elementary School principal. “He was a very good one to be teaching it because he didn’t understand the engineering.”

With 30 faithful years at Cal Poly, Mr. Burdick’s students certainly gained solid and important skills in his classroom, even if their major course of study mystified their teacher.

Mr. Burdick, a longtime Claremont resident, died of pneumonia on Saturday, March 28, 2009 at Pomona Valley Hospital Medical Center. He was 86.

Born in Hollywood in 1923, Mr. Burdick was a lifelong California resident with the exception of overseas service during World War II. Growing up during the Depression, he frequently moved from house to house between Pasadena and Long Beach as his father, a real estate agent, bought and sold homes to support the family.

At 10-years-old, Mr. Burdick experienced the Long Beach Earthquake of 1933, a 6.4 magnitude quake that caused massive and widespread damage.

Following high school, Mr. Burdick served in the US Army and was stationed in North Africa, Sicily and other regions of Italy during World War II. Assigned to the military police force, Mr. Burdick was responsible for prisoners of war, particularly their transport from one location to another via boxcars. He and other MP comrades marched groups of POWs roughly 7 miles to a freight train that took them to their imprisonment destination. According to Ms. Burdick, he and the other MPs rode atop the boxcars, jumping off as the train came to a stop in order to guard the prisoners inside.

Mr. Burdick enjoyed telling a wartime anecdote about how he once had to hit the dirt and soil his uniform in order to avoid enemy fire just before General Patton, a stickler for neat appearance, happened to ride by in his Jeep.

After the war, Mr. Burdick attended college on the GI Bill, earning his bachelor’s degree in social science and his master’s degree in education at Long Beach State. He then began a career as a journalist, working as a sports reporter and editor for the Alhambra Post-Advocate and as a sports reporter for the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Later, Mr. Burdick taught at Rancho Alamitos High School where he served as the journalism advisor. Under his direction, the school newspaper was rated the best among high schools in Orange County.

Mr. Burdick then joined the staff of Cal Poly Pomona, serving in a public relations capacity in the president’s office. He next became a member of the faculty, retiring from teaching lay-term writing to engineers in 1992.

In 1996, Mr. Burdick was taking one of his frequent strolls around Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden when he noted that a woman who he had often previously greeted with a friendly “hello” was walking alone instead of with her 2 friends that usually accompanied her.

“We started walking and talking together,” said Ms. Burdick, explaining that they uncovered “all this history”—from past professional associations, he had known her late husband, and she had known his former wife. “Pretty soon we started seeing each other, and then, after a couple of years, we got married.”

They married in 1999 and were soon to celebrate their tenth anniversary.

In 2003, Mr. Burdick and his wife moved to Mt. San Antonio Gardens where he was known for his beautiful baritone voice and sang in the annual music show. Also an excellent dancer, he enjoyed waltzing and jitterbugging. Gardening and swimming were among the other leisure activities he enjoyed.

In his retirement, Mr. Burdick volunteered on Corey Calaycay’s successful campaign for Claremont city council.

Mr. Burdick is survived by his wife of 9 years, Jocelyn Lyon Burdick of Claremont; by his son, Thomas V. Burdick of Laguna Beach; and by his grandsons, Bradley and Brandon.

Services were held on April 9, 2009 at the Friends Meeting House in Claremont.