Richard D. Gast

Richard “Dick” Duncan Gast, 76 of Bettendorf, Iowa, died at home on December 13, 2024, more than five years after being diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia and autoimmune interstitial lung disease and seven months after entering hospice. He was surrounded by his loving wife, son, and daughter at the time of his death. 

A hospitality gathering will be 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. Saturday, January 25, at CityView Celebrations at Trimble Pointe, 701 12th Street, Moline, with a time of sharing for family and friends at 3:30 p.m. Cremation will take place at Trimble Crematory, Moline, under the direction of Trimble Funeral Home. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be directed to the Richard Gast Endowed Scholarship, Cornell College, 600 First Street SW, Mount Vernon, Iowa 52314 or online at crnl.co/give. 

Dick was born in Waterloo, Iowa on September 3, 1948, the second child of Elmer Gast and Alice (Duncan) Gast. His parents stressed the importance of education, doing your best, and defining success on your own terms. They saw travel as an educational activity, so most family vacation trips included detours to places of cultural or historical significance. Dick could read a road map before he was eight years old.

Dick attended public schools in Keystone, West Union, and Keokuk, Iowa, where he graduated high school. Dick then earned Phi Beta Kappa honors while graduating Cornell College as the first triple major in its history. He later received a master’s degree from Indiana University and MBA from St. Ambrose University. 

Dick invested more than 43 years of his working life, mostly in Engineering Standards, toward making John Deere a better company. During the course of his career, Dick received many awards. His peers recognized him as the agricultural and construction equipment industry’s foremost expert in graphical symbols. He contributed both content and process knowledge to standards development in disparate subjects. He wrote the John Deere Standard for writing standards. Dick received the ANSI Finegan Standards Medal in 2004, a John Deere Engineering Collaboration Award in 2008, the SAE James A. Crawford Outstanding Achievement Award in 2016, recognition for two ASABE standards published in 2017, and an ISO Excellence Award in 2018 for standards leadership.

During the course of his life, Dick acquired thousands of books, read many, and gave most of them away before he died. He himself could not tell a joke worth repeating, but enjoyed humor immensely. Dick was a sports enthusiast from an early age. His initial sporting attachment to baseball gave way to track and field, especially middle-distance running and basketball. He placed third, then second, in Cornell’s intramural table tennis tournament. In his senior year at college, he was named Cornell’s Sportsman of the Year. He devoted hours to studying often arcane sport statistics. In later years he took up bicycling, including three barge-bicycle vacations in Europe. He and Joan attended the inaugural World Championships in track and field (Helsinki 1983) and Dick followed up with the next four U.S. Olympic Trials.

Dick is survived by his wife of 46 years, Joan Marttila; by his children James Meier-Gast and Kristen Marttila and their spouses Becky Meier-Gast and Charlie Marttila; by his five grandchildren Cian, Wren (born Elizabeth), and Grace Meier-Gast, and Solomon and Eero Marttila; by his brother David Gast; by his brother-in-law Paul Riss and sister-in-law Mary Ellen Gast; by one niece, three nephews, and two grandnieces; and by uncles, aunts, and cousins almost too numerous to count. His parents and his sister Nancy Riss preceded him in death. 

Dick was pleased to watch his children grow up to be productive, responsible adults. His pride in their achievements was unmistakable. His love for them, his wife, and his grandchildren was unquenchable.

The family invites friends to share stories and condolences at TrimbleFuneralHomes.com.