BOB KNAPP

BOB KNAPP GUILDERLAND, N.Y. - R. A. (Bob) Knapp of Yorkshire Drive passed away Tuesday July 13, 2010 at St. Peter's Hospital in Albany, N.Y. He was 86. Bob was born in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., the son of the late Theodore A. and Rita Hayden Knapp. He was a 1941 graduate of Saratoga Springs High School. He enlisted in the Navy Dec. 8, 1942, while attending Cornell University, qualifying as a carrier fighter pilot aboard the CVE USS Guadalcanal, flying F4U Corsairs. He was discharged from the Naval Reserve June 30, 1961 as a Lt. (jg). While in the service, Bob and Grace Dyer were married on April 3, 1945, at the Presbyterian Church in Saratoga Springs. Grace accompanied him to bases in Jacksonville, San Diego, Alameda and Livermore, Calif., where their first son was born at Shoemaker Naval Hospital. They moved to Ithaca, N.Y. in 1946, where Bob was a member of Sigma Pi Fraternity and graduated from Cornell in 1948. After three years working for the Royal Dyer molding sand business, Bob was employed by the General Electric Realty Corp. as a traveling construction auditor, based in Schenectady. Subsequent assignments included budgeting and mathematical modeling for GE's armament departments in Burlington and Johnson City, N.Y. During these assignments Bob's pioneering applications of statistical techniques to forecasting and controlling operations were published in Financial Executive magazine, in a book "Contemporary Issues in Cost Accounting A Discipline in Transition", and included in the curriculum of a New York State course in statistics. Bob left GE December 1965 to start Management Systems & Techniques, Inc., the first public-service computer center in Vermont. After a hostile take-over, he came to work for New York State in April 1974, where he was instrumental in starting the computer auditing operation of the Welfare and Medicaid Programs, retiring May 2003 at 79, as a Chief DP Systems Auditor. With childhood aspirations to become a concert violinist, studying under Professor Stefan of Skidmore, he played 50 public appearances in Saratoga and Schenectady including radio, and was a first violinist in the Schenectady Symphony Orchestra as a teenager. Bob was an Eagle Boy Scout, a long-time participant in the SPEBQSA as a member of the Green Mountain Chorus and Battery Parkers Quartet in Burlington, Racing City Chorus in Saratoga Springs, and Uncle Sam Chorus in Troy, N.Y. He was an avid tennis player, competing in numerous tournaments around the Eastern Region of the US Tennis Association. He pursued his life-long love of flying to the end with a Cessna T210, owned with his son, Jeff. He was predeceased by his son, Richard; his brother, Lohnas; his ex-wife and lifelong friend, Grace; and sister-in-law, Shirley Knapp. Survivors include daughter, Ronne Lynn Thielen of Newport Beach, Calif.; sons, Bob of Acton, ME, Jeff of St. Michaels, Md., and Larry of San Jose, Calif.; 10 grandchildren; five great- grandchildren; cousin, Del Sahlberg of Elmira, N.Y.; niece, Kathleen Anderson of Gansevoort; nephew, David Knapp of Fairfield, Conn.; and so many of the most special in-laws, grand-inlaws and friends a guy could hope for. WHAT A WONDROUS ADVENTURE! Relatives and friends may call from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, July 16, 2010 at the William J. Burke & Sons/ Bussing & Cunniff Funeral Homes, 628 North Broadway, Saratoga Springs, NY 518-584-5373. A funeral service will be conducted at 1 p.m. at the funeral home. Burial with military honors will follow at the family plot in Greenridge Cemetery, Lincoln Avenue. A special thank you to all of Bob's friends at The Western Diner and Dorato's. Your kindness and friendship over the years was a true joy for Bob. Online remembrances may be made at www.burke funeralhome.com