Maxwell Robin Klemke: 1934 – 2017

Last night my father passed away at 82 years old, his loving wife of over 30 years by his side.

My father is a large part of the person that I am today. I can vividly remember, at the tender age of 4 or 5, when he sat me down in front of a computer that he was assembling. Parts were strewn across the dining room table, much to the chagrin of my mother. He placed a cable in my hand and showed me where to connect it, my tiny hands managing to force it in backwards. He then showed me the correct way to do it before I got distracted and ran off to the next thing that caught my attention. The seed was planted however and thus began my life long obsession with technology.

As a father he was always one to lead by example, not by words. My never-quite-finished childhood home out in Wamboin being a great testament to this, the vast majority of it being built or modified by his hands. Once we were old enough to swing a hammer accurately though it was his vision that was realised through our work. The decks, pergolas and numerous sheds that dot our property all built by the family together under his careful eye. It was him who gave me a love of building things, both physical and programmatic.

Like many of his generation he came from not much at all. “Too young for WW2 and too old for Vietnam” (as he would say) he avoided serving in any wars and pursued a career in Radio Engineering, earning his degree from the University of Melbourne. Before he met my mother he did installations of audio systems at numerous places, including the courts at Canberra and ANU’s Llewellyn Hall. Soon after marrying my mother however they started a small business called Electronic Components, essentially a competitor to Dick Smith Electronics. They were so involved in the local business community that even 20 years later, when I went to work at DSE, customers would recognise me as Max’s son. Unfortunately the business eventually shut down but Dad would continue to use it on the side as Pamax Industries.

It was after then he began his career as a teacher at TAFE. He began by teaching networking and general computer topics but eventually branched out into renewable energy. Again he was a pillar of his community, training so many of Canberra’s IT staff that even for a decade after he finished up teaching I would still run into people who had been trained by him. My name then brought with it a lot of prestige, something I worked incredibly hard to maintain. Now I feel I am my own man, but there’s no mistaking the shoulders upon which I have stood.

After retiring at the ripe old age of 75 he barely slowed down, turning his focus to projects around the house and (much to my mother’s dismay) eBay. Our house is littered with his projects ranging from numerous bonsais, dozens of LED lights, weather stations and numerous types of electronic gizmos and gadgets. He once again took up his hobby of photography and his canvas prints now adorn the walls of my childhood home. Together with my mother they traveled abroad, my mother finally getting her passport to visit a place outside of Australia. They toyed with the idea of becoming grey nomads but figured they’d much prefer to stay in nice hotels. This isn’t surprising considering they probably had enough of caravans, having lived in one for years while they were building our home.

He is survived by his wife, 3 sons and 1 daughter.

Godspeed you great pillock.