Lasting Memories

V. Gopala Krishna Reddi
May 11, 1933-Sept. 29, 2016
Mountain View, California

In Memory of Venumbaka Gopala Krishna Reddi

Dr. Venumbaka Gopala Krishna Reddi died on the morning of Thursday, September 29th, 2016 in Vancouver, Washington. He was 83.

Dr. Reddi was born the eldest child of Sankara Reddy and Vemuru Venkamma in the village of Annamedu in Andhra Pradesh, India. He was raised in the nearby village of Jarugumalli. After studying at the College of Engineering, Guindy in Chennai, he came to California in 1957 and completed his master’s degree and then PhD in electrical engineering at Stanford University in 1964. He became a U.S. citizen in 1981 and he called Mountain View, California his home for over 40 years.

He was married to Kay Burke with whom he had five children. They later divorced. He leaves behind: Raj Reddi and Terry Intlekofer, Kamala and Jan Buckowski, Anasuya and Michael Polacek (Josef and India), Pramela Reddi and Jordan Fein (Dilan and Mira), Sheila and Michael Palomo (Gabriel and Alyssa). He enjoyed spending time with his six grandchildren.

He could be described as intelligent, frugal, and an introvert. He enjoyed reading, watching golf and old movies, playing the stock market, drinking wine and eating well at home and out.

Dr. Reddi was one of the first 50 employees at Fairchild Semiconductor, a company many refer to as the original silicon company in "Silicon Valley." As an early employee, Dr. Reddi joined in 1958 and worked in Research & Development alongside industry icons Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore and the rest of the "Fairchild 8." He worked briefly in Milan, Italy as a guest professor and in Baghdad, Iraq as an engineer. He retired after working in research for over ten years at Precision Monolithics, Inc. While Dr. Reddi never boasted about his accomplishments, he left his mark on the world by advising students at Stanford, working collaboratively on breakthrough research, and ultimately developing revolutionary processes for fabricating semiconductor chips. It’s hard to think of it today but at the time Dr. Reddi came to the U.S., studied at Stanford, and joined Fairchild, there were only handfuls of engineers from India working in high level R & D, and perhaps a few hundred Indians in all of Silicon Valley. He surely contributed to opening a gateway for other Indian and Asian professionals to immigrate to the area.

He will be missed and remembered by his family, friends, and colleagues around the world whose lives he touched. He is also survived by his sisters, Indira and Nirmala, his brothers, Bala Krishna and Sri Krishna, and his cousin, Vasundhara, who was like a sister to him.