Robert Charles Dougherty

Robert Charles Dougherty (Bob) was born in Havre Montana on December 16, 1930 to Robert Paul Dougherty and Helen Alina Miewald, who lived in Butte. His father repaired cash registers and many other kinds of machines in Montana and, later, San Diego, California. His four younger brothers were Gerald Patrick (1932-1982), a Navy fighter pilot, William Everett (1937-), a computer programmer, Thomas Richard (1952-), a metallurgical engineer and James Allen (1954-2023), a mechanical engineer. He lived with his aunt Leona Bailey on a dairy farm in Havre Montana during his high school years. He attended the University of Idaho, Moscow, (UI) on a Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) scholarship over 1949-1953, earning a B.S. in mechanical engineering. He married Margaret June Stewart, also a student at the UI, in 1953 in Moscow. He sailed the Pacific as midshipman in the NROTC and as a commissioned officer after graduation, ending with the rank of lieutenant junior grade in 1956. Margaret began her career as an elementary school teacher in San Diego, California during the Navy period. After the Navy, Bob returned to UI for a M.S. in mechanical engineering, creating a table saw as his master's project. His son Robert Patrick was born in Moscow, Idaho in 1957. In 1958 he moved with his wife, his son, and his table saw to Livermore, California to begin his career with Sandia National Laboratories (Sandia). His daughter, Sarah Anne, was born in Livermore in 1961. In Albuquerque he had many life experiences including raising his young family and continuing at Sandia. The family toured the Southwest in a succession of camping vehicles. He backpacked in the mountains of New Mexico and the Grand Canyon with his son and daughter and/or his son's Boy Scout troop, which he headed for a time. Other activities in Albuquerque included the Sandia bowling league (the teams were named after missiles; his was the Shrikes), tennis, bridge club, golf, ham radio, Toastmasters, TV repair, woodworking (especially with the table saw), playing guitar, the Coronado Club, bicycling, and photography. He cataloged tens of thousands of Kodachrome slides, mostly of travel with his family around the US and Europe. At Sandia, he was promoted to Division Supervisor in 1965 and later to Department Manager. Many of his friends were from Sandia and its parallel in England at the time, the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment (AWRE). When the AWRE people visited, they sometimes went on backpacking trips with him and his family. He visited them in England and family vacations to England included his AWRE friends, especially John Gibson and his family. Sandia posted him in Washington D.C. for two years in 1980-82, transferred him back to Livermore in 1984 and back to Albuquerque in 1992. He retired from Sandia ca 1994. In 1999 he and Margaret moved to Dublin, California, near Livermore. Margaret passed away in 2001.

Robert Patrick married Wilma Ann Holden in Ames, Iowa in 1980. They live in Bellevue, Washington. The table saw, having made all the moves except the temporary assignment in Washington D.C., was transferred to OptiNav, Inc. in 2019 and used in making a model for a Navy Small Business Innovative Research project in 2023. Sarah Anne married John Barmen in 1995 at Uncle Tom's house in Lake Bluff, Illinois. They have two children: John Robert Dougherty Barmen and Katherine Margaret Barmen, and live in Dublin. Bob will be interred at Memory Gardens Cemetery in Livermore along with Margaret. The family suggests memorials be donations to The Aircraft Carrier Hornet Foundation, https://uss-hornet.org/ or Shepherd's Gate, https://shepherdsgate.org/. A celebration of life is planned. Please contact Sarah or Robert Patrick for details.