SUGAR LAND: Ramesh Patel was born in Ranoli, Gujarat, India on December 4, 1942 where his father Purushottam Mangaldas owned a paper business that sold writing paper for notebooks, ledgers and retail wrapping paper. He studied at New Era High school. He finished his BSc, Chemistry at K.C. College, Mumbai and came to America in August 1963, where he did his Bachelors in Chemical Engineering at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, graduating in January 1966.
Ramesh moved to Boston to work at Dresser Industries and later worked at Dresser Industries Compressors as an Application Engineer where he became one of the top sales engineers and later managed the Sales and Engineering group in Industrial Compressors. He was transferred to New Orleans in 1968 and lived there for a year. He moved to Houston in 1969 and worked at Dresser-Rand Industries for 35 years till he retired.
He loved to travel to cities all over the world with his friends. He loved to play cards, board games, and attend birthday parties of all his family members and friends. He loved watching football, Western Classics, golf, and baseball games, in that order, and watched tennis occasionally. He also loved listening to Hindi Film songs from the 60s and 70s.
Ramesh suffered a stroke on November 27, 2011 and had been wheelchair bound since then, with partial use of his left side which also left his speech impaired. But he still loved to go visit family friends in Houston, visit his daughter Neha and her family in Austin, and even be driven to Dallas to visit friends and his younger brother Naresh Patel. He was bright-eyed and ready at a moment’s notice to dine out and for all traveling adventures. In early 2025, he contracted pneumonia and his health declined steadily over the next 7 months until he died peacefully in his sleep on Saturday, September 20 at 12:30am.
Ramesh Patel lived 83 full years of glorious life, filled with fun, love, life and laughter, with a loving family by his side: Vidula Patel, a dutiful and loyal wife, and daughters Namita and Neha and their husbands, Jacob David and Ketan Bhakta, respectively who took care of him during the years he was disabled.
He is survived by his daughter Namita (Jacob David) of Houston, daughter Neha (Ketan Bhakta) of Austin and their sons Kalen and Nevin; sister Pushpa Patel and family of London; sister Ranjan Vakil and family of Mumbai; younger brother Deepak (Hansa) of Mumbai and younger brother Naresh (Helene) of Dallas and numerous nieces and nephews. He also leaves behind so many loving friends who became very close to him, like brothers and sisters.
