Longtime OPB engineer Phil Estrada Olvera Jr. dies at 55

Print More
This item has been updated and reposted with additional information.

Felipe “Phil” Estrada Olvera Jr., a former interim vice president of engineering at Oregon Public Broadcasting, died Jan. 19 of complications from cancer. He celebrated his 55th birthday just six days earlier.

Olvera began his career at ABC station KVEW-TV in Kennewick, Wash., working his way to assistant chief engineer. In 1992, he moved on to what was then Eastern Oregon State College in La Grande, Ore., to take over as an ED-NET teleproductions engineer. He arrived at  Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland in 1995, starting out as a maintenance engineer and progressing to interim v.p. of engineering.

“Felipe described himself as a geeky, over-caffeinated engineer,” his obituary noted. “He could be found reading science fiction and mathematics books or learning something new related to science or math.”

He was a member of the Society of Broadcast Engineers, IEEE, SMPTE and the American Radio Relay League.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *