It was with great sadness that we learned of the recent death of Richard Jessett in Rugby, UK. At the age of 16 he became an apprentice (the first) with Lumonics in Rugby and served his career from start to finish at the same company, apart from a short period at the MTC.
Over the years the company changed names many times (including GSi Lumonics, JK Lasers, SPI Lasers and TRUMPF).
Richard specialised in laser applications and process development, quickly picking up know-how on laser material processing, from pulsed YAG lasers and then moving onto fibre lasers as the technology developed. He was an extremely popular member of the team, always ready with advice and assistance and with a wry and infectious sense of humour.
Richard and his younger sister grew up in Binley Woods near Rugby, where he was a keen footballer and enjoyed many other sports. Outside work, Richard was an avid collector of music of all genres, especially 1970s punk. His collections went from vinyl to CD to iPod and then streaming, and he was rarely without music in the background at home. His other passion was football, and he was regularly in attendance on the stands or watching Liverpool on TV. Neal Croxford recalls, “My abiding memory of him is in a pub somewhere in Hillmorton in his Liverpool FC shirt, with a pint in his hand talking animatedly about the latest band he’d found (Kings of Leon) and how Liverpool were going to smash whoever they were playing that Saturday.”
Former colleague Steve Keen comments, “I worked closely with Rich up until the onset of his illness. As mentioned already, Liverpool FC was his lifelong passion, we sang “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as our final goodbye at his memorial. Rich carried this sentiment into his everyday life, he always took great care to look after everybody in the team as well as striving to ensure the team’s success. I was always struck how he gave that bit extra, from showing new starters lasers in action, reflecting his enthusiasm for the job, to visiting colleagues who were seriously ill. Rich was the definition of a people person.”
He met his partner Debbie, who also worked at Lumonics, at a Christmas night out, and they shared the rest of their lives through a mutual love of travel and living life to the full. In late 2022, Richard was diagnosed as having an inoperable brain tumour and he continued to do as much as possible to travel and enjoy the remaining years, and was determined to carry on living at home with support through Myton Hospice at Home.
Kevin Withers worked with Richard for many years at Lumonics and the MTC and says, “One thing about Rich, in all our time working together we’ve always eaten and drunk the same thing – he’d always say “what are we having?”. The one time we didn’t we were in Novi, US. I had something light for breakfast, Rich had the breakfast buffet, he just got two of everything, and then offered half of it to me saying “here, try this pal.””
Richard’s memorial service was held at Rugby Rainsbrook Crematorium on 19 December and was attended by around 300 people, many of them being current employees or former colleagues from the TRUMPF Rugby site, which closed for business that day.