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John Robert “Jack” Hannan, Jr. was born in Memphis, TN on June 7, 1944 (the day after D-Day) to John Robert Hannan, Sr. and Paula Gordon Hannan, and passed away on Monday, July 20, 2026, in Colorado Springs. He was raised in the Shaker Heights neighborhood of Cleveland, OH, with his younger sister, Christopher (“Chris”), where their father was as a renowned radiology physician at the Cleveland Clinic and later as partner and president of the prominent Hills & Thomas private practice.

Jack attended preparatory academies for middle and high school, Hawken School and Western Reserve Academy, where he nurtured a bright mind and a gift for athletics. He especially enjoyed playing soccer, managed his school’s swim team, and met schoolmates he appreciated and admired for the rest of his life.

The Cleveland memories he spoke of most fondly were the meals his mother made for family and friends, like her famous paella, and the extraordinary baking talents of a family friend named Dorothy. He often reminisced about the strudel and other pastries Dorothy made for him and Chris with intricate detail and great affection.

As a teenager and early college student, Jack visited many countries around the world with his parents and sister. They traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia and experienced many unique and special international cultures.

He attended college at Northwestern University in Chicago, where he played a bit of ice hockey and specialized in bridge and other card games, as well as billiards, earning him a less than desirable GPA and an invitation from the university to please explore other collegiate opportunities. After attending classes at Claremont College in Southern California for a time, to be closer to his parents who had moved to California, he applied to University of California Santa Barbara and transferred to Goleta, CA. At UCSB, he studied history, enjoyed the college-town social scene, and met the girl next door, (Ardyth) Lyne Campbell.

Lyne and her roommate, Diane, got to know Jack and his roommates at their campus-adjacent Goleta apartment building. Before long they were cooking meals for the domestically challenged bachelors, and it was just a short time before Jack and Lyne were on the path to their young nuptials. They married while still at UCSB and welcomed their only child, Erin, in 1966. While finishing college, Jack worked a few off-campus jobs - at a nearby billiard hall, honing his strong pool skills, at the local youth detention center, and as a hospital x-ray orderly. For a time, he entertained pursuing medical school.

After graduating from UCSB, Jack and Lyne headed to Los Angeles, CA for an opportunity with General Telephone (GTE), which was the beginning of a long, successful career for Jack in software development and engineering, and computer network administration. Though he majored in history, career testing in college placed him off the charts in aptitude for computer technology and getting in on the ground floor of the emerging digital landscape set him on a positive trajectory. He worked for GTE in a variety of increasing responsibilities for 15 years and leveraged this for roles with TRW, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Great Western Bank, and IBM. It was this latter opportunity with IBM that brought Jack and Lyne to Seattle, WA in the early 2000s.

Jack and Lyne loved Seattle, continued to build their careers there, and created a strong social community. Both retired from rewarding careers while living in Seattle and welcomed Jack’s dad to live with them after he became widowed. They really enjoyed this time with him in Washington.
Throughout his life, Jack was an absolutely voracious reader, completing several books a week – mostly mysteries and historical non-fiction. Speed reading classes early in his career seemed to help support this passion.

He was a great skier, swam beautifully like a fish, played racquetball, coached Erin’s soccer team when she was young, and especially loved golf. He was quite good at each athletic endeavor he picked up and golf was his favorite. He also continued his love for playing pool and poker, even joining a pool league after moving to Colorado as well as the poker group at All Souls Unitarian Church and another small poker group at his assisted living community. He also loved watching sports events on TV, football in particular, as well as baseball, soccer, golf, and others.

He loved gadgets and gear, enjoyed collecting specialty knives and guns, and invested considerable time in photography as a young man, creating thousands of slide images in the era of 35mm film. He even had an amateur ham radio license. His love for gear was helpful on family camping trips in the 70s and 80s.

But it seemed that his real love was the art of cooking. Though he didn’t cook much himself, he was always watching cooking shows, talking about cooking, researching ingredients, acquiring kitchen tools and appliances, and planning what he was hoping to make. In another life, he would likely have enjoyed pursuing a career as a chef.

In each of the communities Jack lived, he made a small circle of close friends who shared his interests and quiet lifestyle. They introduced him to Asian cuisine which he loved, shared camping and photography trips, enjoyed golf outings, and bonded over historical knowledge. He appreciated these relationships and sought out re-connection with many after Lyne passed away in 2025.

Jack was smart as a whip, stubborn and strong-willed, gruff but incredibly sensitive, had a dry sense of humor, and was loyal to the end. He was his daughter’s, wife’s, and sister’s biggest cheerleader and champion - always.