Wayne Roderick Monahan, 68, of Hawthorn Woods, an electrical engineer who assisted in the design of the lunar lander used in the Apollo 11 moon walk in 1969, died of cancer Wednesday, June 5, in his home. Mr. Monahan, a New York City native, graduated from Manhattan College with bachelor’s degrees in electrical engineering and physics. A fascination with flying inspired him to serve two years in the Navy as a jet pilot in Pensacola, Fla. Following his discharge, he continued serving in the Naval Reserve until 1966 and retired as a lieutenant. He began working as an electrical engineer at Fairchild Aircraft in Long Island, N.Y., in the late 1950s and later at Grumman Aircraft, also on Long Island. During the 1960s, he was a member of the company’s design team responsible for creating the lunar excursion module. He left the company in 1966 to pursue a sales career and took a position with General Instrument Corp., a provider of broadband hardware in Pennsylvania. In the early 1970s, he was transferred to the company’s office in Chicago, where he was general sales manager. Before he retired in the early 1990s, he worked for more than 10 years as regional sales manager for Thermo Metric in Chicago. Mr. Monahan was a resident of Hawthorn Woods for 30 years. “He was a regular guy who happened to have a fine mind who used it in a lot of different ways,” said his wife, Dorie. Other survivors include a daughter, Kathleen Light; two sons, Christopher and Kevin; and four grandchildren. Visitation will be held from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sunday in Ahlgrim & Sons Funeral Home, 415 S. Buesching Rd., Lake Zurich. Prayers will be said at 9:30 a.m. Monday in the funeral home. Mass will follow at 10 a.m. in St. Francis de Sales Church, 11 S. Buesching Rd., Lake Zurich.
