Cecil "Chip" Barnes IV
July 18, 1947-Jan. 4, 2024
Moraga, California
Submitted by Marni Barnes

Cecil “Chip” Barnes 76 passed away peacefully January 4, 2024, after a courageous battle with cancer, surrounded by his close family. He was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1947, the oldest of three children of Loretta Van Rie Barnes and Cecil Barnes III. At three months old he moved to California and spent most of his life in the Bay Area.

From a young age Chip became involved in theater. He found his calling backstage at the Palo Alto Children’s Theater, demonstrating an aptitude for creative lighting design and discovering a joy that he would carry with him throughout his life. He was the lighting director and lightboard operator at the theater for the better part of a decade and it is also where he made some of his closest life-long friends.

Chip attended Paly Hi and at the forefront of the emerging wave of computer technology, graduated with a degree in mathematics from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. He then traded his “hippie beads” for a necktie and went to work at Stanford Research Institute. When he was informed that the problems that he was working on were not just theoretical, they were aimed at improving the bombing ranges in Vietnam, he became disillusioned and left SRI. Chip went on to have a creative and rewarding career in computer engineering, software programming and systems analysis, including helping Bank of America pioneer their first ATM and online banking platform. Over the years he received many accolades for his ingenious solutions to complicated problems and his ability to explain complex processes in an accessible manner.

In 1983, Chip and Jacqueline Margaret Hocking were married in England. They lived in San Francisco where their 2 sons were born. In 1992 the family moved to Moraga, their home for 32 years.

Chip’s open-mindedness and search for understanding led him to travel widely and to learn from every place and every person that he encountered. He was always eager to try something new and enjoyed discovering things for himself. Chip earned his solo pilot license and was a certified scuba diver. He was an avid sailor and raced his 30-foot sloop on the bay. An active member of the Sausalito Yacht Club, Chip’s boat had no engine, demonstrating a level of skill and bravado that most captains did not dare to contemplate in the currents of the Golden Gate. He was an early adopter of Burning Man where he loved mixing with the varied types of people who gravitated to that creative utopian experiment. Here he found an appreciative audience for his “Gobbling Heads” art animation, a computer display that, in its simplicity, captured the dynamics of corporate greed. Chip was also an enthusiastic amateur photographer who always carried his camera with him on his adventures. Exhibitions of his photographs were staged at the Moraga library as part of their rotating artist series.

Chip was a man who led with his heart and his family was the center of his orbit. He was a tender and amazing brother, husband, and father. He enjoyed long term friendships and loved to go off-roading, biking, camping, or fiddle with electronics with his buddies. He was curious and adventurous from the get-go and loved to share his knowledge. Many people, friends and strangers alike, were the blessed recipients of his attentive and loving nature.

He is survived by his wife, Jacqueline Barnes, their son Cecil “Chris” Barnes V and daughter-in-law Angelica Giannoulatou-Destouni (Paris, France), and his sister Marni Barnes (Palo Alto). He was preceded in death by his son James, and his sister Melanie Van Rie Barnes.