Obituary of Koert S. Voorhees

Remembering…

 

Koert S. Voorhees

 

8/5/1923 – 2/8/2026

 

 

Koert was born in Cedar Falls, Iowa, the son of John Ryan and Helen (Carpenter) Voorhees. He graduated from Cedar Falls High School, where he played French horn in the orchestra and was a member of the track and field team. He also served as drum major for the school’s marching band. 

Koert attended Grinnell College, where his first week at a “new students” dance, he met Connie Lauderdale.  (Remember this part, it’s important.) 

He eventually graduated with a BA Degree in economics but there was a slight interruption: World War II.  Koert joined the Navy, and was commissioned an Ensign on June 27, 1943, in Plattsburg, NY.  That same evening he married Connie at an on-base chapel.  Despite being a Naval Officer he was not quite 21, and needed parental permission to marry.  But everyone knew the two were compatible because Connie had also served as drum major for her high school’s marching band, in Missouri.

Koert’s initial orders sent him to Miami Beach for three months of anti-submarine warfare school, where married officers were housed at the famous Fontainebleau Hotel— in this case almost a government-sponsored beachside honeymoon.  War isn’t always hell.    

The protracted honeymoon must have paid off, for Koert and Connie were married for eighty-one years—until her passing on Christmas Eve, 2024..  

After Miami Beach, Koert served on destroyers in the Pacific, and also served aboard ship in the Mediterranean, during the Korean War.  He retired from the Navy a Lieutenant Commander.  Koert’s favorite war story: On VJ Day (end of the war) Koert and his ship were at Pearl Harbor and—to celebrate—everyone grabbed the ship’s life jackets and threw them overboard with glee.  They all sank.  (Take as long as you need, to think about that.)

Following WW2 and graduation from Grinnell, Koert enrolled in MBA classes at University of Texas (Austin), and also studied at Harvard University.  Koert and Connie returned to Cedar Falls where he took over his father’s business, Universal Hoist.  He pivoted the company to the manufacturing of bucket grain elevators, and introduced the concept of interchangeable parts to that industry.  

During this time he also served as president of both the Cedar Falls Rotary Club and the Cedar Falls Chamber of Commerce.  In addition, Koert and Connie were heavily involved in United World Federalists, a pro-UN/world peace organization.  At one time they were called upon to host Trygve Lie—first UN Secretary General—for a day in Cedar Falls, where he’d come to deliver a speech at the local college.  Most people never actually get a private, full day with the UN Secretary General. 

After selling Universal in 1963, Koert moved his entire family  (wife Connie, daughter Beth, son Jacques, daughter Casi,  nephew Dick, neice Connie Lee, and foreign exchange student  Daniela Salvadori—by then one of the family) to the village of Blonay,  Switzerland for a year.  Somehow he convinced the tiny Swiss school—in the mountains—to take in these American kids who at the time only spoke English.  By the end of the school year, they were all speaking French, and had learned perhaps more than they needed about the Swiss national hero: William Tell.

After returning to Cedar Falls, Koert served as Iowa State Highway Commissioner, and also became one of the founders of Keystone Ski Area in Colorado.   That latter fact isn’t as unusual as it sounds, because the Voorhees family had a miniature neighborhood ski area in their back yard, complete with a primitive rope-tow ski lift powered by an old diesel tractor.  Consider what they called “Black Hawk County Alps” the “before” picture, while modern-day, world-class Keystone, with its eight-person chairlifts and multiple gondolas, is the “after.”  We’ll note that Iowa’s highways are still in pretty good shape, too.

In the early 70’s Koert and Connie moved again—to Briarcliff on Lake Travis, outside Austin in the Texas Hill Country. 

They founded the Pedernales Fire Department, the first fire protection facility for that part of the state, and subsequently became EMTs to handle medical emergencies—eventually becoming EMT instructors, and training many more EMT volunteers.

 In the early 80’s another move took them to New York City, where they worked for Jacques’ company, Polygon (which introduced online trading to the diamond industry).  When Polygon itself relocated to Keystone, they moved again, this time to the high mountains of Colorado.

After finally retiring and moving to Denver, Koert was bitten—late in life—by the AI bug.  He wrote the book “Chatty & Me,” an anthology of conversations with ChatGPT, now available on Amazon.  Via pre-recorded video, Koert addressed an annual meeting of hundreds of OpenAI software developers in San Francisco in 2023, to inform them how a 100-year-old retiree was using their product.  In addition to his involvement with AI, Koert created two strategy-based board games (“Kalida” and “Fin”), which are now available online. 

With Connie’s help, Koert’s family eventually expanded from three children (see above), to six grandchildren (Erik, Courtney, Kristen, Ben, Alex, step-grandson Marc), and to—so far—three great-grandchildren (Athena, Finley, Hazel).  They mostly all lived in Colorado except Beth, whose family in Australia necessitated multiple visits down under for Koert and Connie to see kangaroos, wallabies, almost—once—a wombat, and sometimes even Beth herself. 

In addition to being a lifelong skier, Koert enjoyed woodworking, painting, sculpting, and—most importantly—crafting complex geometric shapes out of toothpicks and glue.  (Hey, someone’s got to do it!)   His favorite shape was a tesseract—a four dimensional object similar to a cube stretched through time.  It’s OK—we don’t really understand it either.  He was also very good with rope tricks.

But none of the above showcases Koert’s personality which can be described as: deeply curious about the world around him, endlessly inquisitive on every topic he encountered, and genuinely interested in every person he met.  He also saw—and frequently pointed out—the humorous side of, well, everything.  You can see that in his smile. 

He will be missed by his family, all those who knew him, and by the entire AI community of Silicon Valley.  We imagine that, somewhere beyond this plane of existence, he’s back with Connie, enjoying meeting new people, teaching them rope tricks, gluing toothpicks together, and trying to get his tesseract to actually move through time.  Not one of us doubts he will succeed. 

Private service at Ft. Logan National Cemetery, Monday, March 16^th.

Please share memories and/or photos on the Tribute Wall provided here.

CLICK HERE to be redirected to a wonderful video montage created by grandson-in-law Cole Higgins, featuring various old home movie clips, including footage from Koert and Connie’s 1944 wedding!