SUPERIOR, Colo. — So many people lost more than a home in the Marshall Fire. One Superior man lost the dream lab he worked toward for about 30 years.
Tom Knox had recently moved to Superior and relocated his at-home electronics research lab from his home in Boulder to his new house in the Sagamore neighborhood. He spent about four months moving all of the equipment, taking about 50 loads worth of items.
"These were all equipment racks. This whole wall was test and measurement equipment," said Knox, looking at the rubble and knowing what should have been in its place.
Knox was focused on precision measurement, and advancing technology related to it. It's often used within science and math fields.
"So much of what I did was push the limits of equipment to measure and create really, really precision signals," Knox said.
At the time of the fire, Knox estimates his lab was worth well over $1 million.
"There is no amount of money that I could just rebuild this again. It would take years," Knox said. "It hurts because it was something that was not just 30 years of work in my life, but something that was going to go on way beyond that for other people to have a chance to utilize and basically be able to push their dreams."
He had eventually hoped to endow the lab to a university, with aspirations it could help young students develop their own skills and dreams.
Christian Petty, a mechanical engineer from Ohio, happened to have a chance encounter with Knox. The two became close, and Petty began using the lab as a workspace.
"Yeah, it is a part of me. I think in many ways, this is a home of mine," said Petty, who didn't live in the home but visited often to work.
"I think he lost as much as I did. Even though he didn’t lose his house, he lost a lot of the dream that we were working on together," Knox said.
With so much gone, the two will continue working toward their dreams. Knox is working toward developing a new product, and one day Petty hopes to open his own engineering business.
"I’ve been watching, learning from some of the most brilliant people in the world. People that I am barely smart enough to get coffee for on my best day," Knox said. "All the experience of building something like this -- It was a labor of love but it was also just an incredible learning experience. So I still have that."
Knox has set up a GoFundMe to help with the cost of his losing his home and his lab.
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