Guy Hearon, 99
Guy H. Hearon, 99, passed away Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023, in Sandpoint, Idaho. Private family services have been held.
Guy was born on Nov. 24, 1923, in Ft. Worth, Texas, to Guy and Cecile Hearon. He grew up and attended schools in Houston. He attended Texas A&M and entered the United States Army in 1943. He served in the Pacific Theater at Okinawa and was honorably discharged in 1946.
Guy married Louise E. Gregg in December 1944 in Las Vegas during the war, when he was stationed in Burbank, Calif. They were married until her death in June 2000.
He worked as a design engineer for Mitchell Camera Corp., designing cameras for the motion picture industry. He worked at Hughes Aircraft, designing radar antennas for the F-86 military aircraft. He then worked for Vought Camera Corp. in Beverly Hills, Calif., as chief engineer. He designed the first 16mm pulse and high-speed instrumentation cameras for the aerospace industry. During this time, he was one of the original founders of the Society of Photographic Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE).
Guy became vice president of Benson-Lehner Corp., where he developed their photo instrumentation business. He also helped developed high-speed 16mm, 35mm and 70mm motion picture cameras for the aerospace, industrial and scientific industries.
He contracted with Cinerama, Inc. to design a 360-degree panoramic still camera and panoramic viewer (early virtual reality) and a 70mm motion picture camera and widescreen projection system (early IMAX system). The widescreen system was designed for the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair space exhibit.
In 1962, after a merger, Guy became President of Cinerama Camera Corp. They developed theater equipment projection, optical and photographic systems for their expanding theater chain. It was during this time Guy negotiated with the Kennedy administration to design and provide the U.S. Government exhibit for the New York 1964 World’s Fair.
Guy founded his own engineering company in 1965, Photomatrix, with two partners. They designed and manufactured microfilm readers, high-speed microfiche duplicators and automatic exposure controls. Later, they added digital products for scanning and digitizing engineering drawings and digital imagery.
Guy retired in 1989 and moved to Sagle, Idaho, and his new home on the Pend Oreille River, built by his stepson, Samuel Bridgers. In “retirement” he began consulting for a Japanese company, supporting their international business in Japan, England and California. Guy married Cheryl Stewart on June 1, 2010.
He is survived by his wife, Cheryl Stewart of Sandpoint, Idaho; two step-children, Kari L. Saccomanno (Dan Prohaska) of Boise, Idaho, and Clayton (Kari A.) Saccomanno of Sandpoint, Idaho, and three step-grandchildren.
He was preceded in death by his parents, wife Louise and stepson Samuel.
Lakeview Funeral Home in Sandpoint is handling arrangements. Please visit Guy’s online memorial at www.lakeviewfuneral.com and sign his guest book.