Robert’s funeral service was held on Tue 20th Jan at Woy Woy on the Central Coast as he lived at Umina.
Steve Clark believes that Robert (Bob) had been ill for the last 18 months or so unfortunately.
Steve Clark first met Bob around 1989 when assigned to a trainee stint at OTC’s recently opened Oxford Falls Satellite Earth Station. Bob had previously worked at the Moree (NSW) satellite earth station and even possibly Ceduna (SA) before that but returned to NSW to be a part of the Oxford Falls staff.
After completing his traineeship Steve successfully applied to be stationed at Oxford Falls full time and worked closely with Bob as part of the shift environment for many years. At one point he took on the admin role of the DAMA satellite platform hub that serviced many of the tiny Pacific Island nations.
In the early 2000’s Bob took a redundancy and went to Vanuatu to work at a satellite station over there.
Then in 2008 Bob made a return to Oxford Falls when the site went back to 24/7 shift coverage and needed experienced satellite techs quickly.
By that stage though Bob found the nightshifts a little more challenging and after a couple of years decided he’d had enough and left to pursue some private enterprise opportunities. It is at that time that Steve lost touch.
Steve was saddened to recently learn of Bob’s passing.
He was a very easy going guy, always had a story of his experiences somewhere and held the local crown at OXF as the man who could handle the hottest of spicy sauces!! He also had a brief cameo appearance alongside Steve and a few others from Steve’s trainee group in the “You and Me and OTC” promotional video that can be found on YouTube.
May He Rest In Peace
Below is an image of Bob and Amanda’s wedding taken by Steve Frendo.
1 Comment
Incredibly sad news and quite a shock. Steve’s comments about Bob were spot on. He was incredibly laid back, polite and the first to offer help to anyone in need.
Bob’s passing brought back a flood of memories of the 70’s and early 80’s. I met Bob February 1972 when we started as Trainee Technicians. After two years at North Sydney Tech we had two years continuous field training with Bob commuting from the Central Coast. I became good friends with Bob, his sister, Robin, and his parents and often visited their home at Koolewong during these four years.
After his transfer to Moree I visited a few times in his single days and once after his marriage. I was Best Man at his 1983 wedding to Amanda, a teacher originally from Woy Woy who had been teaching in the Moree area.
When Amanda transferred to a Woy Woy school, Bob transferred to Oxford Falls and they built their home on the hillside overlooking Umina. How he managed an 85km each way commute on shift and build a house on his days off is beyond me.
With us both on shift we lost contact however several Christmases ago I had a very long catchup over dinner with Bob, Amanda and daughter at their Umina home. He was then working for a renewable energy company though travelling huge distances and away from home for days at a time.
Vale Bob. Gone way too young.