Jack Muzatko was born in Boise, ID on January 27, 1939, to John Muzatko and Helene Belsher
Muzatko, and he died at his home in Pinole, CA on July 18, 2024. Jack attended schools in
Boise, was active in Boy Scouts, and loved hunting and fishing, and exploring the outdoors.
After graduating from Boise High in 1957, he attended Boise Junior College and then Oregon
State University in 1961 with a BS in Chemistry. After graduating, he headed “north to Alaska”
and worked as a chemist at the BMEWS (Ballistic Missile Early Warning System) in Clear, Alaska.
After a couple of years, he moved to the opposite end of the Pacific Coast, Long Beach, CA
where he met his wife, Marlana. He worked for Shell Oil as a chemist before moving again in
1966 to Northern, CA to work for Chevron Research as a staff scientist in fuels chemistry for
nearly 40 years. They bought a house in Pinole where he has lived ever since. He and his wife
divorced in 1973. With Jack’s work, he experienced a lot of travel for business which he
thoroughly enjoyed. He also traveled in his private life to places like Australia, Nepal, Russia,
Greece, Hawaii (where he actually flew in a small plane over an erupting volcano), and
Czechoslovakia. He especially loved the Sierras and Yosemite, and of course had to check out
Alaska again. He had a myriad of hobbies such as international mushroom hunting (mycology
forays), fishing in Idaho streams and rivers, dredging for gold, searching for opals in Australia,
finding and transplanting alpine plants to his beautiful rock garden, and 3D photography. He
was always finding new hobbies to add to the old to make his life more than interesting, the
most unique being faceting gemstones and creating beautiful synthetic opals. He even had
several patents.
He is survived by his sister Carol Ann Henson (Boise), his niece Laila Hardman and Rich (Boise),
and nephew Kam Henson and Wendy (Boise), along with his great niece and great nephews,
Mikaila Hardman and Jason Lopez (Vacaville), Niko Hardman (Salt Lake City), Cooper Henson
(Seattle) and Ian Henson (Boise).
As per his request, there will be no service.
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