John B. Gregory, Jr.

John B. Gregory, Jr. was born in Santa Fe, New Mexico in 1952. He died in Omaha, NE on July 1, 2020, at age 68. He spent most of his life in Omaha, NE. His father was a civil engineer at the US Army Corp of Engineers, working on building large dams on the Missouri River for flood control projects, which meant the family moved around in his early years, living in Missouri and North Dakota before settling in Omaha, NE. He was an athlete in high school, on the track and wrestling teams at Burke High School.



He graduated from the University of Nebraska - Lincoln with a bachelors degree in electrical engineering in 1974 and obtained a masters degree in engineering mechanics in 1976. He worked for the US Army Corp of Engineers for 40 years, where he served with great pride in its mission. He started in the trainee program and worked on projects including the B1 Bomber, and later served in the transportation systems center of excellence where he specialized in airfield lighting and navigational aids. He represented the United States at NATO meetings, working on harmonizing criteria for international airfields. In 1976 he married his college sweetheart, Anne L’Heureux from Red Cloud, NE. They were married for almost 44 years.



John leaves behind his wife, Anne L’Heureux Gregory; children Elizabeth Gregory (Steven Rosato), Sara Whitney (Scott), Rachel Gregory Sachs (Andrew) and William Gregory; and three grandchildren Zaida, Nora and Sophie Sachs. He also leaves behind a brother, Jim Gregory (Natalie), and sisters Colleen Gregory (Barbara Margolis), Irene Burson (Ken), and Marilyn Johnson (Chris); numerous nieces, nephews, grandnieces, grandnephews and many friends and hunting buddies. He was predeceased by his brothers David Gregory, Bill Borgel and Richard Borgel, and his parents Stella Anton Gregory and John B. Gregory, Sr.



John was very close to his family and spent a lot of time together with them. John loved to hunt, loved to fish, and loved to hear and tell stories of hunting and fishing. He really loved to get up before the crack of dawn to tramp through some snow or mud on his way to the Duck Club blind or his deer stand. He was a pretty good shot and enjoyed the fruits of his hunting, eating primarily wild game most of his life. He also really enjoyed working on cars and any machine, fixing nearly every home appliance and his fleet of vehicles. Every weekend morning, if he wasn’t hunting or fishing, he was working on some car problem or home appliance problem, never happy unless he was working on some project. He was very generous with his talents and fixed or advised on many other car or other machine problems.



He lived with stage IV lung cancer (although he never smoked) for 3 and a half years before succumbing to the disease.