Ed Henderson died August 25, 2026, in his home in Española, New Mexico, from brain injuries sustained in a fall.
Ed was born August 4, 1944, in Albion, Michigan, to Ruth Evelyn Penzotti and Edward Stanley Henderson. He moved to New Mexico in 1991 to work as a registered professional electrical engineer for Johnson Controls and then ICF Kaiser. He joined Los Alamos National Laboratory directly in 1998, and remained with LANL until 2018.
He graduated from Albion’s Washington Gardner High School in 1962, where he played football and softball. From there he went to the University of Colorado on a football scholarship, but was injured before he could play.
In 1964, Ed enlisted in the Marines, and was sent to Da Nang in October 1966 where he oversaw 33 electronics technicians repairing communications and navigational electronics for RA-5 reconnaissance aircraft. He was promoted to Sergeant E-5 before his return to Cherry Point in November 1967.
Upon his honorable discharge in 1968, Ed earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Physics from Albion College in 1971 and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Michigan State University in 1973.
His first job was with Consumer’s Power Company in Jackson, Michigan. Ed was sent to Utah to open a uranium mine in Shooting Canyon, Garfield County, Colorado. He then worked as a field engineer during construction of the Midland Nuclear Power Plant.
Ed moved to Phoenix for Salt River Project, then spent time in Saudi Arabia, Dallas, and Detroit. In the last job, he was a field engineer for construction of a Kimberly-Clark diaper plant in Ogden, Utah, and a General Dynamics tank plant in Egypt.
He became a Life Master of the American Contract Bridge League in 2010. Ed often played in Los Alamos with Mark Mundt before Mundt was transferred to the Washington, DC, area.
Ed also was a member of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) where he raced Porsche 914’s and Formula Vee’s. He built his first Vee himself and later purchased an Adams Aero. In 1996, he qualified for the SCCA national runoffs in E Production class.
Ed was preceded in death by his parents, his sister Linda Moreland, and two nieces, Teri Burket and Diane Toeniskoetter. His paternal grandfather, Louis Henderson, was a physician in Albion. His maternal great-grandfather, Francisco Penzotti, was an Italian Waldensian who became a representative of the Methodist Church in Chile and Peru.
He is survived by two sisters, Judith Burket and Eleanor Kay Mullauer, both of Florida. He leaves five nieces, Pamela Baum of Missouri, Jennifer Burket of Florida, Dana Emans of Michigan, Julie Muth of Minnesota, and Amy Peters of Indiana, and four nephews, Richard Burket in Missouri, Jeffrey Moreland in Texas, Brian Mullauer in Florida, and Craig Mullauer in Michigan.
He will be interred with full military honors in Santa Fé National Cemetery on Monday, September 28 at 11:15 am. Later, his nephew Jeff will organize a memorial gathering in Albion.
In his last months, Ed was working on a collective oral history of his high school class. The work will continue and members of his class or their families may still send information about themselves and their friends to edhenderson87532@gmail.com.