A resident of Potomac, Maryland, he was born on July 26, 1972 in San Francisco, California. He was the eldest of two children born to Floyd Olyn Bell and Sue Ann Bell (Stroud). Keith and his sister, the late Lisa Buchanan (Bell), were blessed by the immeasurable depth of the love of their parents and by the truly selfless, unconditional, and patient love of Robert Stroud, their uncle who loved them both as his own.
As a child, Keith was raised in San Francisco and later, in Woodland, California, a small town in Yolo County which he referred to as the “country” and “land of luddites.”
Born under the Zodiac sun sign Leo, Keith was creative, passionate, generous, warmhearted, cheerful and humorous. A mischievous child, he was kind, observant, quiet, loving, loyal, and protective man.
As a young boy, Keith skipped a grade, having demonstrated the potential for performing at exceptionally high levels of accomplishment in math and science. He had a natural curiosity that leant itself to the joy he would find later in life in science, technology, math and engineering. With the encouragement and support of his mother, in elementary school and later at Woodland’s Harold Douglass Junior High School and Woodland Senior High School, Keith found joy in coding, designing electronic snap circuits, 3D CAD modeling, and tinkering with electric motors.
A man of few words, Keith spent his senior year of high school taking courses that included calculus, physics, and honors chemistry and was inducted into the California Scholastic Federation Inc., a nonprofit organization whose mission is to recognize and encourage academic achievement and community service among middle and high school students in the State of California.
Keith was competitive in academics as well as athletics. He played football, softball, baseball, and was an elite wrestler. Not one to be outdone by his peers, he also gained great accolades for his enthusiastic “toilepapering” of his neighbors’ homes. No matter how many times he was caught in the act, he was undeterred in his efforts to earn an Olympic gold medal in his favorite pastime — the act of “TP’ing.”
After graduating from high school, Keith rejected an offer of admission from the University of California, Berkeley, opting to attend the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo whose engineering program is ranked in the top ten in the nation. Keith earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from “Cal Poly.” In later years, he would go on to earn a Master’s Degree in Technology Management from the University of Maryland University College. A lifelong learner, in recent years, Keith took on the study of the guitar as well as foreign languages, including Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. Also, he and his wife shared an interest in genealogy and Keith spent endless hours researching the ancestry of his maternal (Stroud) and paternal (Bell) lines starting in Minnesota and East Texas respectively. Most significantly, in recent years, Keith was contemplating a career change to medicine. It was his desire to become a physician with a specialty in the neurobiology of addiction. Undeterred by advisors who told him that he was “too old” for medical school, he enrolled in the Post Baccalaureate Premedical Program at the University of Maryland. He was a sight to behold on campus and at home donning his lab coat and goggles as he prepared for his chemistry lab.
An electrical engineer by training and a systems engineer in practice, Keith began his career as a manufacturing development engineer at Hewlett Packard's Test and Measurement Division in Santa Rosa, California. He later joined Cisco Systems in Research & Development in San Jose, California as a signal integrity engineer; and after that, the U.S. Department of Defense as a systems engineer. Over the last decade, he worked primarily with General Dynamics where he worked extensively on the design and deployment of secure global telecommunications infrastructure and in the engineering, development, and integration of cutting edge network solutions.
Additionally, for over two decades, Keith dedicated his life to increasing the number of African American students participating in STEM programs, particularly in higher level math and engineering programs with a goal of significantly increasing the number of African Americans earning engineering degrees. He placed a particular emphasis on mentoring, identifying, and recruiting African American engineering students and graduates for engineering jobs in Silicon Valley and in government. Additionally, among other things, Keith spent several years developing minority recruitment plans and recruiting African American engineering students for Hewlett Packard and Cisco at college campuses across the country. He was exceptionally effective in identifying minority engineering students with great potential at colleges and universities across the country, and particularly loved participating in recruitment programs at various Historically Black Colleges and Universities and at global conferences held by for the National Black MBA Association and the National Society of Black Engineers.
On November 19, 2013, Keith spoke by telephone for the first time to his future wife, Michelle D. Bernard. Their three hour telephone conversation led to their first date just two days later. They remained together for the rest of his life. Nine months after their first date, Keith asked Michelle’s parents, Dr. Milton D. Bernard and Mrs. Nesta H. Bernard and her children, Logan and Avery, for Michelle’s hand in marriage. Logan was ten years old at the time and Avery, eight. Keith gladly complied with Avery’s demand that he propose in front of her and her brother. He then willingly complied with Avery’s ensuing instruction that he “better kneel” and “do it again.” He took Logan’s laughter and teasing in stride when Avery announced that he would be “swimming with the fishes” if he ever disturbed their mother-daughter time and instructed him to remember that the family dogs were hers, not his. At Logan and Avery’s request, Keith proposed a second time and they were married four months later. Every day of their lives together, he greeted Michelle, saying either, “Hello wife!” or “Guess what? We’re married!” Together, they cherished their new, blended family. Keith loved the time they spent together as a family with his son and pride and joy, Malcolm Nguyen Bell, and with Logan and Avery whom he loved as if they were his own.
Keith attended Logan and Avery's soccer and basketball games with fervor; attended swim meets, track meets, volleyball matches, back to school nights, graduations, end of the school year parties, first week of school parties, sleepovers, paint gun birthday parties that resulted in bruises as he was a favorite target of the kids’ friends; he participated in multiple ALS “ice bucket” challenges, endured the spread of the norovirus at home after a birthday party and the annual, and inevitable bouts of strep throat that made its way through their home at the beginning of the school year; he became accustomed to little girls crying just because and memorized each child’s many food and environmental allergies, likes and dislikes; he cleaned appliances covered in pancake syrup on a daily basis and acquiesced to incessant requests for slime supplies, slime and glitter birthday parties, Fortnite, FIFA, and NBA 2K contests, annual trips to Markoff’s Haunted Forest, spring fairs, state and county fairs, conversations with stuffed animals, dolls, and with a sleeping bag then named “Phillipe;” he observed and tolerated attachments to gerbils and several gold fish, the funerals over which he presided; volunteered to run in the first leg in a 4 x 100 relay at a student athlete track meet so that the children could enjoy a hearty laugh; and attended countless urgent care and doctor’s appointments without complaint.
He loved playing chauffeur to the kids and their friends and as any child who knew him will attest, he allowed the kids to play rap music in his car as loud as they liked. When he found himself needing peace from the rigors of loud, talkative teenagers, he would simply play a song by Run-D.M.C., named “You Talk Too Much.”
Being a father provided Keith with an opportunity he missed as a child in California when just a few years ago, he attended a Bar Mitzvah for the first time. He wore a yarmulke with pride and carried himself as if the bar mitzvah child were his own son.
Just as he had a special greeting for Michelle, Keith had one for his mother-in-law as well. It was quite simple and to the point, but always said with so much love and adoration — “Hello mother-in-law.”
Like his late sister, Keith loved being part of a large, rambunctious, Jamaican family. He would watch his father and brothers-in-law play dominoes with wonder and amazement at the manner in which they insulted one another and slammed dominoes down on any table where they played. He would watch for a few moments and then go read a book. He laughed at jokes about he and his brother-in-law, Lee Chaffin, seeking one another out at the family gatherings and parties they both cherished, engaging in sign language so that they wouldn’t have to speak to anyone exhaustively.
This very quiet soul was so fond of all of the movement, noise, and talking that took place in the Jamaican household he became a part of. From the antics of “the cousins” to the pity he took on the three young, male cousins surrounded by seven very loud and talkative girls; to his sisters-in-law with so many different interests and personalities, to his father and mother-in-law who felt extraordinarily comfortable in asking him about anything on their mind, Keith had found bliss and contentment.
On their first trip to Florida together, Keith didn’t balk when his not yet in-laws decided they would surprise he, Michelle, Logan and Avery, showing up during their vacation without notice. It was after all, his soon to be in laws’ vacation home. Furthermore, he was amused during their first family trip to Jamaica together when upon seeing Keith’s green eyes, one of Michelle’s relatives remarked, “Hello puss eye.”
Once a hard core omnivore, Keith was a very dedicated vegan. He loved Jamaican food, particularly ackee, callaloo, bread fruit, plantain, rice and peas, and any and all Ital food. However, he never lost his love for dark chocolate, brownies, chocolate cake, cookies, and his late sister’s sweet potato and pumpkin pies and lemon bars.
Keith loved the life he built in the District of Columbia, including the camaraderie he enjoyed after becoming a member of The Consorts and the Washington, D.C. Pro Duffers Golf Club. Yet that being said, one of his greatest joys in life was introducing Michelle to his mother, sister, uncle, son, brother-in-law, aunts, and nieces. The Bernard and Bell families became one from the day they met. Keith’s family was his greatest joy in life.
Keith leaves behind to treasure his memory his wife, Michelle D. Bernard; his son Malcolm Nguyen Bell; his step-children, Logan Christopher Bernard Johns and Avery Elizabeth Bernard Johns; his mother, Sue Bell, his uncle, Robert Stroud; his aunts, Mary Kassner and Flora McClanahan; his cousins, Danielle Stading, Annette Story, Julie Kovacs, Joshua Kassner, his father and mother-in-law, Dr. Milton D. Bernard and Mrs. Nesta H. Bernard; his sisters-in-law, Nicole A. Bernard, Andrea A. McIntosh and Nicole Luepann Bernard; his brothers-in-law, Milton “Desi” Bernard, II, Dwight Buchanan, Lee Chaffin, and Keith McIntosh; his nieces Drew Bernard, Peyton Bernard, Naomi Buchanan, Monica Buchanan, Hayden Chaffin, Leah Chaffin, Gaebrielle McIntosh and Brynn McIntosh; and his nephews, Milton Desmond “Christian” Bernard, III and Alec McIntosh.
Keith was laid to rest and a private inurnment was held on Thursday, January 10, 2012 in Beltsville, Maryland. A private celebration of Keith’s life was held on Saturday, January 12, 2019 at The Stained Glass Hall, William F. Bolger Center, 9600 Newbridge Drive, Potomac, Maryland 20854.
WELL DONE THY GOOD AND FAITHFUL SERVANT!
Charity: The Polaris Project
Many people have asked how best to honor Keith’s life. If you are moved to do so, we would ask that you use this fundraising page to make a donation to the Polaris Project, Keith's favorite charity. The Polaris Project is a leader in the global fight to eradicate modern slavery. All donations will go directly to the Polaris Project. Named after the North Star that guided enslaved Africans and African Americans to freedom in the U.S., Polaris systemically disrupts the human trafficking networks that rob human beings of their lives and their freedom. Through a comprehensive model that puts victims at the center of Polaris' work – they help survivors restore their freedom, preventing more victims, and leveraging data and technology to pursue traffickers wherever they operate. Please join our family in honoring Keith and his support of this mission by making a donation to our family's peer-to-peer fundraising campaign today: https://amplify.netdonor.net/5241/polaris/52010/in-honor-of-keith-malcolm--bell-.
