Steven J. Hadlock

Steven Hadlock, lifelong Manchester resident and avid aviation enthusiast, passed away peacefully at home on Saturday. He was 71.

Born in 1955 in Manchester, Steve was the son of Wilbur and Laurette Hadlock. He graduated from West High School and received his bachelor's degree from St. Anselm's College in Manchester. He attended the University of Michigan Biological Station to do advanced research and was in the graduate program in environmental studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

He met his lifelong love Lynda (Patsos) in 1979 and they were married in 1991, surrounded by close family and friends, in North Conway. They spent many of their weekends out on the boat at his beloved family camp on Baboosic Lake in Amherst.

Aviation was Steve's passion from a very young age. Watching planes take off and land at the local airport as a boy with his dad evolved into a life filled with airshows, Space Shuttle launches and many evenings gazing at eclipses and other events in the night sky. He stayed home from kindergarten to watch Alan Shepard go into space in 1961 on Mercury Redstone. And he watched, heard or attended every launch since.

Steve was at Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the April 1981 launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia, the first orbital space flight of NASA's shuttle program. And he was on hand again in 1988 for the launch of the Shuttle Discovery, in what was dubbed the "Return to Flight" mission - the first after the Challenger explosion. He attended dozens of airshows and any and all displays of aircraft and space vehicles around the country and overseas with his close friends, and fellow enthusiasts, Sean Van Anglen and Mark Guenther.

Steve's focus on the environment also started young. One of his high school projects was on water pollution, and he was at one of the large peaceful protests against the Seabrook nuclear power plant in 1978. He served as a delegate to the United Nations International Environmental Conference and was a coordinator for the National Science Foundation Environmental Program for New Hampshire.

During his professional career, Steve worked for Aquaculture-Biotech doing the design, fabrication and sales of filtration and tank systems, and later as a field technician for the Utility Pipeline Services Company. He retired from PreSeis Inc. in 2025 after nearly 20 years as a field technician.

Family and friends know Steve as a voracious reader and an endless fountain of information about aircraft, the military and current affairs. He cherished his beloved cats and he was the go-to guy for weather updates. He loved driving his Jeep, was an avid Trekkie and could fix anything with duct tape. He greatly enjoyed family gatherings and took with him his amazing secret recipe for the best Bloody Mary.

Steve is survived by his wife Lynda, his doting mother-in-law Anita Patsos, his sister Susan (Bill) Batchelder, and his nephews David (Dawn) Batchelder and their children Kate and Adam, and Jon (Judi) Batchelder and their children Michael and Caroline; his brother-in-law Steve Osborne and nephews Nathan and Nick, his sister-in-law Barbara Patsos and nephew James and niece Elaina. He is predeceased by his parents, his father-in-law Socrates and his sister-in-law Jean (Patsos) Osborne.

There will be a private burial, and a celebration of life will be scheduled at a later date.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Honor Flights New England at https:// honorflightnewengland.org/ or to the Baboosic Lake Association, which can receive donations on its GoFundMe page at www.gofundme.com/f/support-baboosic-lake. Checks also may be made payable to The Baboosic Lake Association and mailed to: PO Box 1106 Amherst NH 03031.