Burien resident Albert Elmer Seifert, 91, passed away Feb. 20. He was one of the longest-serving employees at Boeing, working nearly 70 years there. The tool master fabricator worked full time at the Auburn plant until two months ago. He had cancer.

In 2001, Seifert (pronounced "SIGH-fert) created the Laser Trim Cell, a device that employs a laser to cut stainless-steel tubing. Patents held by Albert E. Seifert include the Circumferential Measurement of Tubular Members, granted Feb. 14, 2006, and Post-Forming of Thermoplastic Ducts, granted Oct. 6, also in 2006.

Colleague Dave Yousko wrote the Seifert family, ""When I first came to Boeing over 30 years ago as a young equipment design engineer I had plenty of big ideas but lacked the experience to put them into practice. I didn't know at the time how lucky I was to be paired up with Al who was the senior toolmaker in his area. With his patient guidance and highest quality fabrication skills we turned out some successful equipment together. My equipment was rather modest but Al also took on the biggest jobs where he directed a team of toolmakers. When I was there at start time he was the first one running his machine and at the end of the day he was the last one sweeping up. It was a real privilege to work with him and he will be missed by many."

He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Yolanda, daughters Lorelei Seifert and Desiree (Seifert) Retallick and her husband Bill, grandsons Brett Joseph and Michael William Retallick, and granddaughter Alyssa Breyann Retallick.

Albert and Yolanda were fixtures for many years at the Burien Elks Lodge. Robinson News, including the Highline Times, shares that building.

Yolanda and Lorelei, also former Boeing employees, sat down and spoke to the Highline Times about Albert, and Boeing in the 1940's. Yolanda met her future husband there, at Boeing Plant 2.

Yolanda said she and her husband may never have met but that it was "our destiny". Albert left his hometown, Wahpeton, North Dakota, In 1941, with his Certificate of Aviation Engineering from North Dakota State College of Science, and stopped over in Seattle en route to a job at Lockheed in California; the interlude lasted 70 years following a formal Boeing interview Dec. 31, 1941.

She, too, was not considering Boeing as a career at first.

"I was going to be a flight attendant for Pan Am because I had two languages and they wanted that," recalled Yolanda, who was born in Puerto Rico and speaks Spanish. "They made a movie of the B-17 that I saw. Men and women in the theater cried because it was so moving that planes were needed and all that. I had this girlfriend. We were rooming together and we decided then to work at Boeing.

"i was a mechanic," Yolanda continued. "I put paneling in the B-17's, electrical wiring, anything. I was Al's helper. That was how we met. Men didn't want us (women) where they were working. They said we just interfered. They used to send 'the girls' out to get screw drivers and many stupid things. They humiliated us any way they could. Al called me 'Hanky', short for 'Hank', and they called another woman 'Sam'. But people change, and they had to change because we showed them that we were greater than they were because we had the majority when they were sent to war. The only men left were 4-F. We built those B-17's for them."

Al served in WWII from 1944 to 1946 as a Corporal in the Army’s 9th Armored Infantry Division. He earned numerous medals for the European Campaign, including the Purple Heart. He was severely wounded in the Battle of the Bulge but recuperated and returned to Boeing. He married Yolanda (Arcelay) in 1949.

"Before we got married he had to promise me we'd get away on weekends whenever we could, even if it was just to Tacoma," she said. "He fulfilled that. We danced every Friday and Saturday until maybe five years ago. We traveled quite a bit, to South America, Asia, Oceania, the Caribbean, and Hawaii, I would have never flown in a plane unless it was made by Boeing."

Al wouldn't retire, Yolanda recalls. "We had a group we went out with. We all danced, the Elks, the Sons of Italy. I remember when he was 65 a lot of the guys in the group were retiring. One of my girlfriends said, 'Now that my husband has retired I don't know who the kitchen belongs to.' I said, 'Well, that'll be the day'. But it was more than that. As time went on, after the war, he did better at his job and more demands were put on him."

"I remember when I was seven and my father brought home a poster," said Loelei, who went on to become a technical designer and drafter for Boeing, engineering drawings for components in passenger seats, seat tracks, cabin interiors, and flight deck instrumentation.

"The poster was an engineering rendering, like an architectural print, an airplane placed where the clouds are beautifully painted, the plane painted with generic Boeing colors," Lorelei said. "It was a rendition of gas turbine engine. He showed me how the turbines turned in different directions. I was only seven and didn't understand but I remember how he took the time to try to explain the rotation and how gears and fans and airflow operated and had enough power to drive something as large as a jet. He always cared about helping people understand how something worked. If he had to work on his cars he invited me to clean parts. That's how I learned how to fix cars and to be more self-sufficient."