William Quentin Tingley III

William (Bill) Quentin Tingley III, age 62, of Grand Rapids, passed away on Saturday, April 22, 2023, after many long medical battles over the past 15 years. He valiantly fought every health challenge that came his way with a positive outlook, determination to prevail under the toughest of circumstances, and all while maintaining his natural wit and good humor. Daily prayer carried him along the way as well. In his final days, he was surrounded by his closest family and friends who talked, reminisced, prayed, and stood beside him until the end. He was preceded in death by his brother, Brian Tingley; grandparents, William and Julia Tingley; Ralph and Pauline Meyers; and father-in-law, Roger Dupont. He will be lovingly remembered by his wife, confidant and best friend of 20 years (23 years total of being together), Bridget Dupont-Tingley; his parents, William and Margaret Tingley; sister, Christine Rozema and husband Doug; mother-in-law, Kathy Dupont; nieces and nephews, Olivia Dupont, Andrew (Courtney) Dupont and Noah Dupont; Krystal Rozema (daughter Evelyn Meier), Stephanie Rozema (sons Carson, Callan & Silas), Courtney Rozema and Kyle Rozema; brother-in-law, Jeff Dupont and wife Mickie; and sister-in-law, Vicki Tingley. He also leaves behind a wonderful, loving and large extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Bill was well known to be the “top cat” to his seven feline friends at home (Bridget the guilty one here of naming them, feeding them and quietly bringing them inside never to leave again). Bill was born, raised, and spent most of his life in Grand Rapids. He began his life of brilliance and great knowledge as one of the students in President LBJ’s famous “Head Start Program”. When our young scholar had his picture and story in the local Grand Rapids Press Newspaper, The Tingley family proudly knew that this moment was just the beginning of Bill’s first shining light to the world to be known later as “The Little Genius”. He attended Aberdeen Elementary (kids going there were fondly known as “Aberdeener Wieners”). He was proud of being a Boy Scout during his younger years and learning new skills for survival that would come in handy in the future. While a student at Riverside Middle School, Bill took on the responsibility of several paper routes in the Aberdeen neighborhood, and mentored his sister and brother with their routes. Bill advised us how much fun he had with the paper route as each house he went to he could meet all different kinds of people. His most memorable customers were seniors who kept their house at 90 degrees in the heart of summer, enjoyed a lot of peanut butter and gave him his best tips. He finished his K-12 schooling as an outstanding student at Creston High School. He was on the Cross-Country team and could often be seen running as far away as the Beltline and back toward downtown during his frequent training sessions. He loved the joy of running long distances and enjoyed people, places and the scenery along the way. Upon graduation he was accepted into many top-level universities such as MIT and Stanford to study Physics. He attended Michigan State University for some time until he realized he could not take the boredom and slow nature of college courses. Bill chose a different path at this point in time. Bill chose to become a military man. His branch of service choice was the United States Air Force. He had a drive to do something more profound and understood that choosing to serve his country was something he wanted and needed to do. He was stationed at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, Texas during basic training. He then moved west to attend and graduate from the prestigious Department of Defense Language Institute in Monterey, CA. He did further Cryptologic Training at Goodfellow AFB in Texas He was eventually stationed overseas at RAF Mildenhall - Suffolk, United Kingdom. He proudly served his country for 6 years – reaching the rank of Technical Sergeant – Airborne Voice Processing Specialist also known as a Cryptologic Linguist Specialist - specifically in Russian. He routinely participated in hazardous aerial missions on the RC-135U/V/W aircraft reconnaissance variants. These missions were often dangerous, flown far from home base and off the coast of target nations. These missions were often referred to as “Alone, Unarmed and Unafraid”. He received many ribbons and metals, for the outstanding performance he made while in his combat role over the years. He made many lifelong friends in The Air Force - amazing fellow Air Force men and women and still stayed in touch with many after all these years. Some of Bill’s fondest memories were of these years, friends in the UK and all the adventures they had overseas. Bill was able to fulfill at this point directing all his talents to God, Family, Nation, Crew, Self – in this order continuously. After the Air Force, Bill began his civilian career. He returned home to Grand Rapids where he joined his Father, Mother and Brother and a few others in the family manufacturing business. He specialized in mathematics, computer and CNC programming and was critical in helping the business expand to greater levels, writing advanced programming for their CNC machines. Bill’s family business is the industry’s pioneer leader in inserted tube bending tools and tube bending machine parts. They have set the standard for tube bending dies, mandrels, and machine parts for almost four decades now. This long-term success has been due to excellent design, execution, delivery, and pricing. They have customers all over the world besides the US – UK, India, Australia, Italy, Mexico, to name a few. Bill was also instrumental in helping to create and write patents for their newest product lines because, “The best tooling is from Bend Tooling, Inc.” With the visionary input of his father, himself and another VP at the business, many existing patents and others currently underway, can be attributed to this trio of brilliance of which Bill was directly involved. Bill took early steps to start rediscovering his Catholic faith prior to meeting his wife, Bridget. Once they met up, they spent over three years traveling back and forth between the east side of Michigan to the west side of Michigan. Eventually, they became engaged and married. As a couple, they continued to pursue and understand how important their faith was through bible study, weekly church attendance, group meetings and social events. They joined St. Alphonsus Catholic Church upon marriage in 2003, and were members there ever since. Faith was important to Bill and he never stopped reading, writing and studying so he could understand the pain, struggles and riches of a solid Christian foundation for himself, his wife, his family and his friends. Bill understood even then that suffering is required in this life and we have to find a way to manage it. Through The Cross and Jesus suffering for us, any hardship Bill endured became more bearable. Everyone that knew Bill fondly referred to himself as “Your Favorite Lamp of Knowledge”. Or did Bill call himself that and everyone just went along with it? Clearly, Bill had a wonderful, quirky sense of humor as well. He was a voracious reader as others can attest via his 2-story home library. He also enjoyed studying historical maps and could never get enough books or floor globes to satisfy his interest in the world. He also had a fine hand at crafting complicated poetry. He always enjoyed watching shows and series about whatever makes things “tick”. He loved to grow in knowledge and share it with others. Lifelong learning was something he enjoyed every single day. His nieces can attest that as children, he used to give them books for their birthdays. To this day they confirm how much they disliked his birthday gift giving ideas. They wanted toys – not books! But, low and behold, we found out recently that those same nieces that are now adults with children of their own, give the present of books to other children. Why? Because a child that reads and learns can understand history and the world. They confirm that they remember a few of the toys they got from others, but they do remember the books their Uncle Bill gave them. He wasn’t “Your Favorite Lamp of Knowledge” for nothing you know. Bill will be dearly missed by all those that he knew; his parents, his wife, his in-laws, family, neighbors, co-workers, school friends, fellow aircrew members, business acquaintances and more. Mass of Christian burial will be held at St. Alphonsus Parish, 224 Carrier St. NE, Grand Rapids, on Friday, April 28, at 12 pm, with Fr. Santa officiating. Relatives and friends may meet with the family from 10:30-11am for a group rosary before other events begin. Visitation will be held from 11am-12 pm, prior to service at the church. Burial will be at Fairplains Cemetery. A hot, catered lunch will be provided by Caroline’s Catering of Grand Rapids at 2 p.m. at MKD Stegenga Chapel, 1601 Post Dr. NE, Belmont MI. The dress code has been requested as casual for family, friends and business acquaintances. Bill was a brilliant man, but also enjoyed simple things in life too. He would want everyone to be casually comfortable for his final journey home to The Lord. Feel free to wear bright colors to celebrate the greatness of a life well lived. May this amazing and visionary man who was taken too soon, be remembered by all that ever knew and loved him. Please continue to pray for Bill as he prayed for all of you. In lieu of flowers, Bill would be happy for anyone to make a contribution in his memory to any Military Veteran Charity – Wounded Warriors, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Tunnel to Towers, etc.