With great sadness, we have acknowledged the news on the death of Bob, a dear friend of our Institute, closely related to the Plankton Sorting and Identification Center in Szczecin.
Bob, 87, of Wakefield, passed away quietly on Monday June 13, 2016. One of 10 children, Bob was born and raised in West Haven, CT. He later moved to Bridgeport where he met and married Judy Jones, of Fairfield, CT. They were married for almost 68 years.
Bob began a 33-year career as a marine biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service (now NOAA) in the Milford, CT lab while attending the University of Bridgeport, from which he graduated. He moved on to work at the lab in Woods Hole, a position often requiring him to spend two-week stints at sea aboard the research vessels Albatross III and IV. In 1960, Bob and his family moved to Juneau, Alaska for one year to prepare data for a tri-country salmon conference. After his return to Woods Hole, Bob was on a team that developed a revolutionary plankton collection vehicle, his beloved Bongo Net. In 1967, Bob became involved in joint fisheries research cruises with scientists from Kaliningrad, USSR.
Bob then took a break from plankton sorting with an overseas position at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy for a year. From Rome he traveled to Sierra Leone, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal for FAO.
Upon his return to the US, Bob moved to the Narragansett lab and had further international research collaboration with a lab in Szczecin, Poland. Before his retirement in 1982, research cruises took him from the North Sea of England to Chile and Antarctica.
We remember Bob supervising the construction of our pavilion of the Plankton Sorting and Identification Center in Szczecin. For many years he supported our work, especially the first steps providing us with knowledge of the zoo and ichthyoplankton identification. We have also learnt a lot from him during trainings at the Laboratory in Narragansett. Bob will always remain in our memories as a friend both in professional and private relations.
