Donald Paige Rogers, 84, of Freeland, died peacefully at home on Thursday,

Dec. 2, 2010.

Don was preceded in death in 2001 by his wife of 49 years, Frances Wales Rogers.

Don was born Sept. 28, 1926, in Orange, N.J., and spent most of his childhood in Cambridge and Hardwick, Mass.

He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Williams College. He served in the Navy as a radio technician during World War II.

He began his career, in 1950, designing television and radar components at the F.W. Sickles Co. in Chicopee, Mass.

In 1953, he went to work for John Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, in Silver Spring, Md., designing missile tracking and guidance systems.

In 1959, at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., he started working for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), on the design and development of satellite systems for communications/navigation, earth resources survey and environmental monitoring.

He completed his career as a program director, and retired from NASA’s Washington, D.C. headquarters in 1981.

Don and Franny raised their family in Kensington, Md. In 1998, they moved to Freeland, an area they learned to love during visits with their daughter and her family.

Don was an avid reader all his life, enjoying a wide range of subjects. He was an active member of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Don was very happy with the simplicity of his life on an island, and his favorite refrain was: “Life keeps getting better and better.”

He is survived by his three children: Jonathan Rogers and wife Polly of Harrisonburg, Virginia; Betty Rogers of Coupeville; and Caroline Adler and husband Andy of Virginia Beach, Va. He is also survived by 10 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren: Jacqueline Gulino, husband Michael, and children Sofia and Daniel; Scott Rogers, wife Shaena, and children Luke and Emily Paige Rogers and Ralph Rogers; Joanna Thome, Mary Thome, and Atticus Rectenwald; Elizabeth Kettl, Brian Kettl and Joseph Adler.

Online condolences may be expressed at www.visserfuneralhome.com.