Dr. William D. “Bill” Stanbro

PORTLAND – Dr. William D. “Bill” Stanbro, 77, passed away peacefully on Feb. 24, 2024, after a long battle with dementia. He was the husband of Helen F. (de Chabert) Stanbro, with whom he shared 54 years of marriage.

Bill was born on Nov. 29, 1946, in St. Louis, Mo., son of the late Dr. William Woodrow and Rosemary Muriel (Conners) Stanbro. He grew up in Bethesda, Md., with his three sisters and a growing love of the Wild West and science, two passions he brought together later in life.

Bill attended The George Washington University, where he obtained a PhD in Physical Chemistry and met his future wife, Helen. They were married in 1969 and had four children over two decades.

In 1972, Bill began working at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory studying the environmental impacts of nuclear power and moved to Columbia, Maryland, where the family lived for 16 years.

After a brief period in the private sector, when he was a co-founder of Biotronics Systems Corporation, in 1989, Bill moved with his family to Los Alamos, N.M., where he worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory for nearly 30 years. He was an expert in Nuclear Safeguards, Arms Control, and Nonproliferation Treaty Verification. Bill traveled to several countries, such as Austria, Russia, China, and Japan, to ensure that nuclear weapons were safely stored and handled. Throughout his professional career, Bill obtained ten scientific patents, authored over one hundred technical papers and reports, and received various scientific awards. Later in his career, he found great satisfaction in mentoring other scientists in his field.

Bill dedicated his life to providing for his family, utilizing science and technology in the interest of health and national security, and devoutly following his deeply held Catholic faith. Yet there was another side to Bill in his capacity for wonder. This quote by Sir Isaac Newton best describes him, “I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself, I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

Bill never stopped learning and exploring the world through travel, cross-country skiing, kayaking, archeological digs, computer science, and reading from his over 5,000 book library on his varied interests, including history, geology, and technology. He also cultivated a contemplative prayer practice that, along with his beloved Irish folk music, was a source of solace in his illness.

Bill was predeceased by his sisters, Mary Anne Matthews and Carol Jean Stanbro.

He is survived by his wife, Helen F. (de Chabert) Stanbro; children, Jennifer and husband Mark Ford, Elizabeth, Patrick, and William Stanbro; grandchildren, Forrest, Evelyn, Amelie, and Conor; a sister, Virginia Proctor; and many extended family members including Christine, Kimberly, Jason, and Sarah.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 11 a.m., at Holy Martyrs Church, 266 Foreside Road, Falmouth, on Friday, March 1, 2024, with a reception to follow in the parish hall. To view the livestream of the Mass, please visit Bill’s memorial page at http://www.ConroyTullyWalker.com Arrangements are under the direction of Conroy-Tully Walker Funeral Home of Portland.

In lieu of flowers,

please make donations

in Bill’s memory to:

Pajerito Environmental Education Center at http://www.peecla.app.neoncrm.com