CHAMPAIGN – Celebration of Life services for Nicholas Alexander Vassos, 87, of Champaign will be at 10 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 20, 2007, at Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church, 2010 Three Hierarchs Court, Champaign.

Fr. Basil Papanikolaou and Fr. James Ellison will officiate.

Burial will be in Woodlawn Cemetery, Indianola.

Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2007, at Heath and Vaughn Funeral Home, 201 N. Elm, Champaign. The Trisagion Service will be conducted at 7:30 p.m.

Mr. Vassos died at 1:15 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 15, 2007, at Manor Care Health Center, Champaign.

He was born Jan. 19, 1920, in Newark, N.J., a son of Dionysios and Irene (Stragalas) Vassos.

He married Diane (Despina) Maxouris, who preceded him in death. He married Anita Loop on July 23, 1999, in West Palm Beach, Fla. She survives.

Also surviving are two sons, Minas Vassos, Wilmington, N.C., and Jason Vassos of Sterling; one daughter, Irene Vassos of West Stockbridge, Mass.; one sister, Chrysanthe Tatakis of Wellington, Fla.; and three grandchildren, Zee, Jesse and Isabella.

Mr. Vassos attended schools in Newark and Woodbridge. He was self-educated, earning his GED as an adult. He worked with his father in a family-owned restaurant in Newark as a young man.

He served as a staff sergeant in the Army Air Forces and was a skilled airplane mechanic. During World War II, he was stationed in various posts in Italy, Palestine and Egypt.

Mr. Vassos was a longtime member, founder and past president of Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church in Champaign. He owned the Urbana Trailer Park in the early 1950s. In the 1960s, he went to work at the University of Illinois as a materials technologist in the Coordinated Science Laboratory, where he became an expert in the bonding of metals and ceramics. He designed several vacuum furnaces and developed techniques to bond metals to metals and metals to ceramics. He holds a patent for a special bond that was used in the guidance system of the Polaris missile.

He was also instrumental in the design of the first plasma display used in the PLATO project at the University of Illinois during its initial development. He read voluminously and was a long-standing member of the Metallurgy Society. He was a friend to many graduate students at the U of I, helping them with research for their doctorate degrees.

He was a 32nd degree Mason and a Shriner.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Three Hierarchs Greek Orthodox Church, Champaign.