<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<p><em>Stephen Clark Burrell </em>peacefully passed away on April 27, 2023 after a long series of illnesses. Steve was known and loved for his wit, intelligence, inquisitive nature, honesty, integrity, and adventurous spirit. He was the son of Clark and Frances Burrell.</p>
<p>Steve lived his 80 years to the hilt. He was raised in the small town of Lovell, WY, in one of “those square states” as described by one of his classmates. There he learned to appreciate beautiful, wide-open spaces. He also learned to ski much before other Americans, as it was a new sport at the time, picking up skills that he passed on to others years later as a ski instructor at West Point. </p>
<p>In Lovell, Steve was known for mischief as a boy and harebrained escapades as a teenager. He left Wyoming for West Point and four years (much to his dismay!) of strict obedience. There he challenged the rules as much as he could and earned the nickname “Nikita” for his Russian language aptitude. He graduated in 1965 with an honorable discharge due to a spinal injury.</p>
<p>Soon thereafter he met wife-to-be, Kathie Morrill. Since he and Kathie wanted a life of international adventure, Steve got his MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management in 18 months and earned the top student prize. For the next three decades, Steve was a salesman for gas and oil projects around the globe. </p>
<p>Their early life was a whirlwind of children (two—Melinda, born in Salt Lake City, UT and Andrew, born in Kansas City, MO) and moves (10 states, as well as Brazil, Belgium, and the U.K.). Steve’s West Point training came to the fore many times, particularly in the early years. Once, upon realizing that his 12-month-old daughter had locked herself in her bedroom, he went to the next-door neighbor, got permission to jump from balcony to balcony outside to rescue her via the sliding door (not something most young fathers would conceive of doing). A year or two later, after a Sunday afternoon outing in Sao Paolo, the family was walking back towards their car. Some men were walking towards them on the sidewalk, one of whom had a camera dangling from his neck. Steve instantly recognized the broad red, white, and blue strap of his own camera. Like a flash, Steve ran after the man, tackled him, and brought him to the ground. The police arrived soon thereafter and were complimentary of Steve’s West Point-honed decisiveness and athletic abilities. Those same West Point athletic abilities were useful later that year when he was nominated by a group of stranded colleagues to climb out of an elevator stuck between floors. Without taking off his suit jacket, Steve crawled along a greasy beam over a deep shaft to the emergency exit and sounded the alarm. </p>
<p>Steve swiftly rose through four different engineering companies, finally landing in London, UK, with MW Kellogg as VP for Eastern Hemisphere sales. Upon retiring, Steve and Kathie returned to the U.S., where they founded the Golden Pond School in Ashburn, VA, which soon gained a reputation for exceptionally high-quality early childhood education.</p>
<p>Steve’s career encompassed many responsibilities and leadership roles and involved work on six continents. His personal highlights include meeting three heads of state, “racking up” hundreds of thousands of air miles, a naval escort into Algeria for a sales call, finalizing multi-million-dollar contracts, being seen as a world-wide liquid nitrogen gas expert, and hundreds of opportunities to photograph the world and expose the most beautiful and the most bizarre. </p>
<p>His optimism, humor, and can-do attitude—traits no doubt encouraged by West Point—helped him succeed in the business world. An example of this occurred in 1992 during the Gulf War as he watched “bomb’s eye-view” footage of a coalition bomb destroying an Iraqi-occupied Kuwaiti oil facility on the nightly news. “They just blew up the first project I ever sold!” an astonished Steve exclaimed. He then paused for a moment, then noted with a chuckle, “Now I can sell it to the Kuwaitis again!”</p>
<p>Steve honed his leadership skills and passed on the West Point culture of honor and excellence. Steve lived his life echoing West Point values of honesty and integrity. He also was known for his ability to make people laugh and his inability to put up with baloney (though he would use another term). His wit, humor, intelligence, and love have been sorely missed these last years by his immediate family: wife Kathie, daughter Melinda, son Andrew, and grandson Alexander. </p>
<p><em>— Wife</em></p>
</body>
</html>