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John Bernard "Jack" Holton, beloved husband, father, and grandfather passed away peacefully on June 14th. He was 89 years old.
Jack was born in 1936 in Cincinnati, Ohio to a family that stressed scholarship and community. But Jack especially enjoyed sports, focusing his spare time to make the varsity basketball squad and leading the Roger Bacon High School golf team as their captain.
To pay for college, Jack enrolled in the United States Navy ROTC program at Marquette University, beginning an 11-year service to his country as a Navy officer and reservist. The Navy brought him to San Diego, where he fell in love with California and applied to Stanford University to continue his education.
It was at Stanford where he met his future wife, Lorraine Fraga, when he invited the members of several nearby women's colleges to attend a square dance he organized as the social chair of the local Newman Center. Determined to settle down and raise a family, Jack and Lorraine were married in 1963 and Jack began a career working with some of the earliest computers at the IBM corporation.
But following a near fatal auto-accident Jack began to reevaluate his career goals and decided to pursue a more academic path, moving his young family, which now included two boys Michael and Steven, to Chicago to study for a PhD at Northwestern University.
Still determined to be in California, after graduating from Northwestern Jack secured a position as an Associate Professor at USC's Marshall School of Business and settled his family in nearby Pacific Palisades, where he never missed a game or school play cheering for his children and actively supported his wife throughout a rewarding career in real estate sales and management.
Though he enjoyed teaching, Jack always longed to apply his study of business to entrepreneurship and in 1990 he started Tamis Systems, a computer software company developing custom solutions for schools and hospitals. Jack loved selling the product and would often amaze his family with the impressive client list for the fledgling startup company.
After many exciting work projects, Jack stepped back from running the company in the 2000s. And eager to get a chance to play more golf, Jack and Lorraine picked out a lot with an amazing view in a fun retirement community in Palm Desert. For the next twenty years they enjoyed competing in golf tournaments, singing in local choirs and many visits from cherished family and friends.
Jack's boundless optimism, caring mentorship, dear heart, and joy of life will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him. He is survived by his beloved wife of 62 years Lorraine, treasured sons Michael and Steven, and adored grandchildren Mark, Christopher, and Julia.
May God grant him peace. The Holton family is grateful for the kind condolences commemorating Jack's life and would like to extend a special thank you to all the wonderful caregivers who helped Jack in his final years. You are forever in our hearts.
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