Joseph Kirk died on June 19, 2025 at 1:40 pm. Today would have been his 82nd birthday. He was my father.
Joe completed his undergraduate degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he took French, Russian, and German in addition to his regular course load. Joe later earned a master’s degree from American University.
Joe was proud of his long and storied career, starting with the CIA, NSA, and the Cost of Living Council in the Federal government (with some guy named Donald Rumsfeld) before moving into a successful stretch as a consultant, working with ICF. His final career stage involved extensive work in turnarounds and financing, helping various struggling companies reorganize.
In his younger days, Joe was an athlete. He was a goalie on many ice hockey teams, including MIT’s varsity team, the Gallaudet University team, and the independent amateur Washington Chiefs hockey team. Joe was also a dedicated squash player and nationally ranked in his age group well into his 40s.
I took him on once around that time. I was 20, and in the best shape of my life. He was 46. I played as hard as I could, and I scored maybe 3 points on him across our 3 matches. I might have had the physical edge, but his sense of strategy had me bouncing all over the court while he stood there, nailing point after point.
Joe also earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do in his early 40s.
Joe was an avid reader. When I was a child, we would go to the local public library on Saturday mornings. Joe would check out a stack of books a foot high (or more), and read them all Saturday and Sunday, returning the read books Sunday night. He kept a small journal where he had written the names of every book he had read and his personal ratings.
Joe loved to play games like Scrabble, Boggle, Fictionary, and Password with his friends. Joe also loved complicated strategy games -- the kind with big paper maps, cardboard chits, and massive rulebooks. He was also a fan of play-by-mail map rallies, and early computer games, which he played with me and my brother. He could be extremely competitive, and hated to lose.
He loved peanut butter, carby snacks, roller coasters, Fawlty Towers, Peter Sellars’ “Inspector Clouseau” movies, and traveling the world. He had a penchant for over-the-top musicals and showy spectacle, which is one of the reasons he made his home in Las Vegas for many years.
He was serious. It was hard to make him laugh, but that made the payoff all the more precious. He was also completely unable to tell jokes, despite his best efforts. He could be sweet, warm, and loving, and while he seemed ambivalent about his role as a father, he loved being a grandfather.
He was often generous to a fault. He had very few close friends, but was loyal to them for life.
He was the oldest of 4 children, and had a difficult and fraught relationship with his family after a painful childhood. In his later years, he told me he regretted not being more forgiving and not trying to build better relations with them.
Joe was a complicated man, often hiding his true emotions and motives, while trying to carefully manage the image he wanted the world to see and working on his many-layered plans. He liked keeping his personal life private, and was reluctant to discuss any aspect of it.
Joe was one of the smartest people I knew, but at times could make some astounding mistakes, often in his relationships with people. I learned so much from him, both what to do and what not to do. He had a strong moral code and he abided by it (with a few notable exceptions).
At the moment, I am overwhelmed by memories of things he did and said, good and bad.
“Life is not fair.”
“Make a difference.”
“This, too, shall pass.”
Joe lives on in the many people he helped, coached, mentored, inspired, and touched in his life. That list includes me.
I knew him my whole life. Many of the characteristics (positive and negative) that have made me so driven and led me to success can be directly attributed to him. We often disagreed, and real conversations about who we were and what we were feeling were all too rare. He might have been distant, but he was always supportive of what I was doing with my life.
Thank you for everything, Dad. I hope you are at peace and free from pain.
