Neil Alan Eskind

Neil Alan Eskind, a man of wide interests and insatiable curiosity, passed away in the Fall of 2024 in Sausalito, California. He was a longtime resident of both Sausalito and Tahoe City. Neil was born in New York City in 1939, the son of Morris and Sadie Eskind and the grandson of Zelig and Nechama Eskind and Louis and Eva Kovner, all whom were Jewish immigrants from The Pale of Settlement in the Czarist Russian Empire who came to America in the early 1900’s.

Neil’s family moved to Los Angeles at the end of World War II. After graduating from high school in L.A., Neil attended UCLA and UC Berkeley.  He earned engineering and law degrees.  He married Sue Lyall and they had a long and happy marriage until her death in 2016.  They had no children.

As an engineer, Neil worked for a time at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory designing and testing uses for lasers among other projects. He also collaborated with engineers at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories on some experiments related to the NASA Gemini program. He was amused by the fact that one of his data recorders on this sophisticated project was a tape recorder he bought at Radio Shack.

He later moved to Tahoe City to practice law. He became Deputy Counsel for Placer County, General Counsel for the Truckee Tahoe Airport, as well as General Counsel for the North Tahoe Public Utility District. He worked on many recreational and environmental projects which benefitted the community. His work was enhanced by his dry wit and thoughtful and open manner.

Neil had a lifelong interest in photography which was spurred on at an early age when his parents built a darkroom in the family home when Neil was a teenager. His curiosity later extended to optics in general. He collected cameras, telescopes, modern and antique microscopes, and other optical equipment. He also collected model trains. He loved to read.

Neil was predeceased by his parents and grandparents as well as his sister Adele Eskind Feldman Hale and niece Helen Feldman.  He is survived by nephew Ethan (Nancy) Feldman, great niece Sarah (Steve) Johnston, great nephew Michael (Kristen Wu) Feldman, and 3 great great nieces.

Neil had a lifelong commitment to education and learning and generously left his estate to UCLA to endow a chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering in the name of Neil and Sue Eskind.

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