John W. Zach

NORTHAMPTON, MA - John Zach died peacefully of natural causes on Tuesday, August 29. He was born in 1928 to John and Janina Zachazewski, also of Northampton.
John graduated from Northampton High School in 1946 and in 1951 attended the IBM Education Center in Endicott, NY, to discover the emerging career of computer technologies. He served as an IBM computer engineer and later manager until retiring in 1989. He married Patricia Boron, of South Deerfield,  in 1951 and was her faithful husband until her death in 2017.
John is survived by his sister Emily Dragon, of Northampton; son Rick Zach, of Gilford, NH; and daughter Cindi Zach, of Norfolk, MA. John has three grandchildren, Kerry Zach, of Leominster, MA, Dean Zach, of Gilford, NH, and Cora Allard-Zach, of Charlotte, NC.
John was always an active, outdoor, fun-loving person. His interests, with others, included snowmobiling, downhill skiing, boating, target shooting, ham radio (FCC call letters W1JWZ) camping, traveling, and community volunteering for his previous town of Wilmington, VT. After retirement, John was a ski ambassador for Mount Snow. John particularly enjoyed polka dancing with his wife and singing Polish songs with family and total strangers.
The funeral was held on Saturday, September 2, at Wrisley Funeral Home. Burial followed immediately at nearby Brookside Cemetery in South Deerfield.