Bob was an amateur astronomer par excellence. He was deeply immersed in virtually all aspects of the hobby: visual observing, variable star, lunar and planetary, occultations and grazes, eclipses, and solar phenomena. He was fluent in the technical language and theory underlying all of these areas. 

Bob had both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from UW Madison (in Classics). After serving in the Air Force, he spent his career as a computer programmer for Swiss Colony. He served as president of MAS from 1991–1999 and went on later to serve as president of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society too.

Bob was passionate about all aspects of astronomy and enjoyed sharing the hobby with anyone who expressed an interest. He was a patient teacher and taught many the craft of carefully timing occultations of stars by asteroids or the moon. Many members remember the expeditions he organized to place telescopic stations along a line to capture the “shadow” of the distant bodies. His leadership of MAS resulted in increased public outreach in the 1990s, and he spearheaded MAS’s hosting of a national convention of the Astronomical League in Madison in 1993. Bob oversaw a period of unprecedented growth of the club and development of its observing site, the Yanna Research Station. He was a long-time member of the AAVSO and International Occultation Time Association (IOTA) and contributed thousands of observations to those organizations. Bob’s knowledge of computer programming and love of algorithms led him to make contributions to organizations such as the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO) in the days when astronomy software was still crude and difficult to use.

Away from the eyepiece, Bob was a devotee of ancient languages, Egyptology, military history, and the Green Bay Packers, and as with astronomy, was always happy to share his wisdom with neophyte and maven alike. He was involved in the community too, serving several terms on the Waunakee school board.

MAS also benefitted from the talents of Bob’s wife Sue, an accomplished artist. Sue designed the MAS logo that we still use today.

Later in life, Bob’s struggle with arthritis ended most of his observing activities but he remained deeply involved in his own research, teaching, and writing. Many of his friends were able to keep in touch with him because of his love for attending lectures on all of his various academic interests. Bob passed away in May, 2016 after a struggle with cancer.

At the time of his passing, Bob’s lifelong friend Dave Weier remembered his friend’s piercing sense of humor: “Though he rarely cracked a smile, he had that glint in his eye when he had the “hook” in you and then started reeling you in. Moments later, you’d recognize the “gotcha” moment of his gag or joke.”

(This post relied heavily on tributes written by Dave Weier and Wynn Wacker following Bob’s death in 2016. Compiled by John Rummel, September, 2025, with additional material from the MAS history archives).

Back to the In Memoriam page.