Beloved Senior Hardware Engineer Remembered: Dan Pedtke Leaves a Lasting Impact at the Notre Dame Wireless Institute

Dan Pedtke, a Hardware Engineer at the Wireless Institute within the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Notre Dame, passed away on Monday, May 6, 2024, at his home in Boston, Massachusetts. He was 69 years old.

He joined the Wireless Institute in November 2022 after a longstanding career in Electrical Engineering and radio-frequency circuits that began in 1978 after graduating from the University of Notre Dame. Originally from South Bend, Dan cherished his experiences in the town and at Notre Dame and was delighted to return to his family home in South Bend and work at the university where he once studied. He traveled the world and had many jobs along the way, and loved to tell anecdotes of his experiences to the undergraduate and graduate engineering students who frequented the wireless lab. He was an avid amateur radio operator and was in the process of constructing a large dish satellite antenna at his South Bend home to augment his hobby.  He loved collecting old radio gear and frequented ham radio gatherings where equipment could be bought, sold, and traded.  

Reflecting on his time with Dan, Professor Bert Hochwald, co-director of the Wireless Institute, expressed, “Dan was only with the Wireless Institute for a little over a year, but he already made a significant impact on our evolution and maturity as a home at the University for all things wireless. We will miss him greatly; he had a cheery disposition and a great wealth of knowledge, and he loved talking with and helping students succeed in our department and the Institute.  On a personal note, I enjoyed visiting him at his South Bend home and helping him with the various wireless, repair, and engineering projects he always had going on all at once.  It turns out, we had remarkably similar childhood experiences as young engineers, even though we grew up years apart and in different parts of the country.”