Washington - Bruce Hume Blakey's journey began on August 26, 1932 in Fargo, North Dakota, born to Stanley and Annabelle Blakey, one of 12 children. In 1944 the family packed up and moved to Seattle. That first summer he was asked by a neighbor to help his son take a fishing boat north. Bruce had no experience, and the son was a boozing captain on a battered boat. It became clear as they made their way north that summer the captain was in no shape to navigate. Armed with nothing but pluck and determination Bruce took over the helm and maneuvered the fishing boat north without radar or charts, past shoals and rocks, heaving seas and narrow channels, dragging the captain out of bars and taverns at stops along the way until they arrived safely in Alaska. He was 12 years old.

Bruce was drafted in the Korean War, and returned to work at Boeing as the youngest purchasing supervisor ever hired after his military consignment. He met and married his first wife Birdine in 1953, and they had five children: Diane, Greg, Glenda, Tammy, and Leslie. Bruce moved on from Boeing to work for Honeywell where he trail-blazed projects with ingenious innovations. Honeywell then asked him to work on a tube based sonar project and Bruce tinkered instead with a solid state, tubeless sonar. He spent months developing the idea with a laser focus. When he presented the concept to his superiors they dismissed it and told him to 'quit wasting time' on it. Never one to give up, he flew to Minneapolis to present it to Honeywell's CEO, but he also told Bruce to forget it. Bruce saw potential and could not forget it, quit Honeywell and with two engineers, Ken Sublett, and Jesse Brinkerhoff, invented the first solid state tubeless sonar. He applied the new technology to fisheries for locating schools of fish and in 1965 started the company Western Marine Electronics (Wesmar) to market the sonar. The new sonar concept changed commercial fishing forever, and the founding of Wesmar was one of his greatest lifetime achievements. The company is an amazing story of technology and progressive innovation as Wesmar went on to become a world leader in acoustical sonar design. In 1968 Wesmar received the President's E Award for Export Excellence for its successful exporting to global markets. In 1983 he married the love of his life Cheryl, who was the ballast and partner in the wake of his creative genius. Over the years, as Cheryl worked tirelessly beside him, the company expanded and went on to develop industrial level monitors, sonar for veterinary medicine, and military contracts for underwater mine search and recovery. Bruce's roving outside-the-box thinking drew him to design gyro-powered roll fin boat stabilizers, bow thrusters, and the first color radar. Wesmar sold in 2017.

In 1983 while continuing to steer and manage Wesmar, his roving eye caught the burgeoning Bristol Bay salmon industry, and Bruce started a new company: Snopac Products. He bought a mothballed military ship and converted it to process salmon in Bristol Bay at a time when floating processors were rare in the predominantly land-based salmon operations. Once again, he spearheaded a shift in an industry resistant to change. Other companies quickly followed suit, adding floating processing ships to their business plan. In 1986 his son Greg purchased 49% of the company and Bruce transferred the remaining shares to Greg, along with his daughters Glenda, Tammy, and Leslie. Greg continued to operate as president of Snopac Products until 2012 when it sold to Icicle Seafoods.

Bruce Blakey was a man of surplus energy and ideas and in 1993 he bought a 260,000 acre ranch from a German princess in the Chilcotin Valley in British Columbia, Canada. He'd never ranched before, but he tackled the project with gusto improving Alexis Creek Ranch by clearing the fields, installing pivots, building cattle enclosures, and appointing his family official rock hoisters when they visited, to lift and carry thousands of pounds of rocks over the years from the fields into a truck. Well into his 70's by then, Bruce became expert at bulldozing and excavating in his spare time. With the progress made at Alexis Creek it eventually supported over 4,000 head of cattle. The ranch sold in 2012.

Bruce left a remarkable legacy when he died on January 23, 2022. Nothing, no disparagement or denial from others, ever slowed his creative trajectory. He believed he could do the impossible, and he often did. Captain, fisherman, engineer, inventor, patriarch, realtor, innovator, rancher, entrepreneur, were only a few of the many roles he tackled and accomplished. He changed lives with his vision and generosity.

Bruce was preceded in death by his ex-wife Birdine, daughter Diane, his son Greg (Nancy), and grandson Brian Hanrahan. He is survived by his wife Cheryl, daughters Glenda, Tammy, and Leslie, 10 grandchildren and 21 great grandchildren. A service honoring Bruce will be held February 12, 2022 at Abbey View Memorial (3601 Alaska Rd, Brier, WA) at 10:00 am. A Celebration of Life will follow at McMenamins Anderson School (1807 Bothell Way NE, Bothel, WA). Flowers can be sent to Abbey View Memorial. Or in lieu of flowers please consider donating to Fred Hutch https://www.fredhutch.org/en/ways-to-give/honor-a-loved-one.html