Extracted from The Durango Herald (Durango, CO)
Thursday, April 17, 2014

Dennis Richardson Liles

Durango resident Dennis Richardson Liles died of cardiac and pulmonary complications Sunday, April 13, 2014, at Mercy Regional Medical Center. He turned 68 two weeks earlier.

Mr. Liles was born to William and Vergie Liles on April 1, 1946, in New Orleans. He graduated from Isidore Newman School in New Orleans and was proud to say that “Peyton Manning went to my school,” his family said.

Mr. Liles went on to earn a doctorate in engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

On Nov. 2, 1968, he married Laura Reid in Metairie, La. The couple had a son together before the marriage ended in divorce.

He moved to White Rock, N.M., where he began a 30-year career with Los Alamos National Laboratory. Mr. Liles led the TRAC project at LANL, developing a software code used to analyze the safety of nuclear reactors in operating events and incidents using three-dimensional nuclear reactor transient couple thermal-hydraulics and reactor kinetics.

While at Los Alamos, he was heavily involved in the safety analysis for several Department of Energy projects, including facilities at Rocky Flats near Denver and various other facilities.

On March 19, 2004, he married Marilyn White in Golden.

“Dennis was passionate about narrow-gauge trains -- both real and model trains,” according to his family. “Colorado's railroads and mining history kept him busy in the summer months searching for old mines and abandoned railroad roadbeds. He would spend hours perusing historical books and mapping out trips to where a railroad used to run. And since most of those railroads existed to support mining towns, he was smiling all summer.”

Mr. Liles was a longtime member of the San Juan Large Scalers in Durango and numerous historical societies in Colorado.

“Dennis had a big heart and every Christmas donated to Manna Soup Kitchen and either the New Orleans or La Plata County Salvation armies,” according to his family.

Mr. Liles is survived by his wife of 10 years, Marilyn White of Durango; son, Daniel Liles of Rowlett, Texas; stepdaughter, Casey Gagnon, of Dayville, Conn.; and former wife, Laura Liles, of White Rock.

Cremation has occurred. A celebration of life will be held in Durango at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made at http://salvationarmyalm.org/nola for the New Orleans Area Command Salvation Army.