Michael Peter Sharrock

Michael Peter Sharrock

January 25, 1945 - December 04, 2024

Mike was born in 1945 to Edmund Peter Sharrock and Josephine Susan (Antony) Sharrock in Columbus, Mississippi, where Edmund was stationed in the US Army Air Corps. Mike spent much of his first four years living in Streator, IL, with his mom and grandparents, Sophie and William Sharrock, while his dad was employed near Chicago. Housing was difficult to find after the war, so his dad commuted on weekends to see his family. During Mike’s fifth year the family was together once again, this time in Minneapolis, when his father obtained work with 3M. For a year, Mike and his parents lived with his maternal grandparents, Theodore and Susan Antony, again housing and finances still being tight post-war. After one brief year with both parents (no grandparents, finally) in Cumberland, Wisconsin, Mike spent his next 16 years in Saint Paul, MN. He graduated from Hill High School in 1963 as salutatorian of Hill’s first graduating class and then studied physics at the College of St. Thomas, along with two friends, Greg Schmidt and Dick Beyer. The three of them comprised the entire physics body at that time! After graduation in 1967, Mike headed south to Urbana, Illinois for a six-year graduate program in physics. He received his Ph. D. from the University of Illinois in 1973.

While not in the throes of lab and thesis work, he found time to pursue another “career” interest – dating and eventually marrying in 1973, Suzanne, at that time a music major. Employment prospects were somewhat slim for newly-minted physics Ph. D’s, so Mike accepted a four-year post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania to hopefully prepare him for eventual college teaching.

In 1977, Mike and Suzanne relocated to St. Peter, Minnesota, where Mike (finally) found a physics faculty position at Gustavus Adolphus College and where daughter Lisa was born in 1978. However, Mike learned that being a college professor at a teaching college was not as much fun as pursuing research. Also the pay was not ideal. Fortunately in his high school and college summers, he’d worked at 3M in St. Paul in various capacities, from warehouse to labs, mostly because he had an “in” of sorts, namely his father who had already spent almost thirty years at 3M (although not in science.

Mike decided, after spending the summer of 1978 doing research back in Urbana for a former professor, that he wanted to apply for corporate research positions and decided to apply to 3M in St. Paul. To his great delight and probable surprise, as he’d managed to briefly nod off during his job interview with his future boss, 3M hired him as a researcher in the field of Magnetic Audio-Video, as it was then called. Here Mike began a quite distinguished career in magnetic recording materials, He developed an equation that became known as Sharrock’s Law. Although he was somewhat embarrassed by the acclaim, he also was very proud of his law. (The normal person is not expected to ever understand it, so it will not be printed here…) Mike absolutely loved his work and even most of his coworkers! His work truly suited him perfectly, so much so that when he left Imation (a spinoff of 3M) in 2011 he wasn’t willing to retire, but instead found another magnetics research opportunity at Hewlett-Packard in Boise, Idaho.

Both Mike and Suzanne absolutely loved Boise. It was beautiful – mountains, high desert, Boise State University (with its blue turf and excellent teams), lots of arts and culture, and very friendly people. Although the HP job lasted a little less than two years, they remained in Boise for the next 10 years just enjoying life in the “Mountain West”.

Somewhere along the way, back when Mike was still at Imation, M&S somehow managed to become grandparents, Justin in 2008 and then Taylor in 2010. The word “doting” is a poor adjective here, perhaps obsessed would better fit the circumstances. They are and have been truly great joys in life.

Outside of professional activities, Mike and Suzanne, who eventually made a fairly dramatic career change to computer science professor, shared a love of the outdoors, backpacking through many of the western states. Rough tent camping all over the United States in remote areas, was their idea of the “perfect” vacation. Finding out that the tent was set up next to a nest of baby rattlesnakes or next to a bear highway was just part of the fun.

They also shared a love of fairly random interests, including WWII history, Saab cars, all sorts of British music and history, organ music and organ concerts, old Winston Churchill speeches, bagpipes, Latin, old-house projects (built in 1924, so a given) and of course the aforementioned

grandkids. Mike also fancied himself a pilot for a few years in the early 90’s, managing to solo twice, before Suzanne insisted that he quit while he was still alive! Mike also loved playing with anything mechanical (which could be quite useful), sailing ( a subject in which he was more enthusiastic than accomplished), and all sorts of scientific subjects.

Alas, a dark cloud for Mike loomed in the background. in early 2014 Mike was diagnosed with metastatic carcinoid cancer, a fairly-rare neuroendocrine cancer that is generally asymptomatic until it is extremely well established and metastasized elsewhere. His surgeon in Boise was kind of cool guy a little older than Mike, who offered to let Mike drive his gull-wing Mercedes. Unfortunately, there was no real treatment (i.e. chemo, radiation) for this type of cancer, because it is very slow-growing. Mike expected to maybe get ten good years with a couple other surgeries to de-bulk the tumors. And he was successful in living a normal life, i.e. the active outdoor and indoor activities. The folks at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Carcinoid center kept him going for most of those years. It was just this last year (the eleventh since diagnosis) that symptoms became troublesome as the tumors were growing much larger. He did fight it valiantly then, with hospitalizations about once a month starting in Fall 2023. Ultimately, as the symptoms worsened, he decided on home hospice, and he was able to go peacefully after a couple of weeks at home. The end was very peaceful, and he just took a last breath.

Mike will be always remembered and loved, and greatly missed by family, friends, and colleagues.

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