MATT WILLIAM RICHARDS

Matt William Richards, 59, of Hamshire, Texas, died Thursday, July 20, 2017. He was born on August 3, 1957, to Marianne Bird Richards and Mikel Gordon Richards, in Wareham, Massachusetts, but please don’t call him a Yankee. He loved Texas, had family in Texas, and considered Texas his home.

Being from a military family, Matt attended many schools. After graduating from high school in Hendersonville, North Carolina, Matt joined the United States Navy to see the world. And he did, with one tour in the Mediterranean aboard the USS Yosemite, a tender ship for the Fleet. A second tour was in the Pacific aboard the USS Mt Vernon, a dock landing ship based in San Diego, California. In the Navy he served as an electronics technician rising to the rank of E5 before his honorable discharge.

Matt saw the world, but his roots were in Texas and he returned to live in Waco, Texas. He was employed as an electronics technician by Hercules to test rocket engines under contract with the Department of Defense. Matt met and married Pam Tutwiler. Then he resumed college at Texas A&M University where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science.

Matt worked at various jobs as the family moved to Oklahoma, North Carolina, Rhode Island and back to Texas. In Austin, Matt was the manager of the on-campus computer repair center for The University of Texas at Austin. He was accepted to the United States Coast Guard Officer Candidate School at Yorktown, Virginia. Upon graduation, he posted to the Marine Safety Office in New Orleans. After the birth of their second child in Austin, the family was reunited in the Big Easy.  In New Orleans he inspected ships, barges, mobile off-shore drilling units and even a Mississippi River steam-driven paddle boat. He transferred to Port Arthur, Texas, and continued as a USCG marine inspector.

After an honorable discharge from the Coast Guard, Matt turned his hand to restoring old vehicles. He specialized in rare vehicles and developed a near encyclopedic knowledge of models and their parts. He worked on and traded over 140 vehicles, including sports cars, muscle cars, motorcycles, trucks, a hovercraft, a helicopter, an amphibious Hydra Trek and an excavator.

Matt was a natural athlete, excelling at tennis, running, and weight lifting. He also learned to scuba dive and fly small planes.

He read lots of books across a broad spectrum of subjects, such as, physics, nature, biographies, mathematics and more. He was an admirer of Buckminster Fuller and often quoted him, “I live on Earth at present, and I don’t know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing — a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.” 

Survivors include his father, Mikel Richards, of Asheville, North Carolina; sons, Bart Richards and Chad Richards, both of Austin, and their mother, Pam Richards of Beaumont; brother, Val Richards of Rapid City, South Dakota; sister, Claire Dugoni of Portland, Oregon; and several nieces and nephews.

He is preceded in death by his mother, Marianne McArthur; and stepfather, Douglas McArthur.

A memorial service for Mr. Richards will be 3:00 p.m., Wednesday, August 16, 2017, at Broussard’s, 1605 North Major Drive, Beaumont. A private family committal was held at Broussard’s Crematorium, Beaumont.

In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations be made to Vets Helping Heroes, 8000 North Federal Highway, Suite 207, Boca Raton, Florida 33487-1681, a non-profit charity that funds training assistance dogs for American veterans and active-duty personnel or online at www.vetshelpingheroes.org.