Robert Parker

Robert (Bob) Parker, inventor, husband, father and grandfather, passed away in Tucson, Arizona, on December 16, 2022, at 86 years old from complications due to COVID19 and AFib.

Born on June 25, 1936, Bob grew up in a loving family of little means in the Bronx, New York, playing stickball and making his own toy rockets and planes with his older brother Al (1931-1971). He attended Stuyvesant High School and CCNY, graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering. In 1958 he flew to California for an interview at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL or the Lab) and fell in love with the sunshine of the west.

Two years later in 1960, he fell in love again and married Nancy Thomas, his wife of 62 years. Son David was born in 1962 and daughter Linda was born in 1965.

After fourteen years at the Lab, several during the Cuban Missile Crisis when Bob experimented with plutonium and explosives (and built a bomb shelter in the backyard of their Danville home), he left to start his own company, Robert Parker Research (RPR). While at the Lab, he had become acquainted with liquid crystals and invented the liquid crystal thermometer, along with many other thermochromic products.

At RPR, Bob also mass manufactured mood rings, an icon of the 1970s. He went on to create holograms and worked on many innovations as a consultant at RayChem Corp. and independently. His other inventions include the Eggrite, which shows when eggs are boiled, the Pasta Per'fect, which does the same for noodles, and the Grill-Per'fect, for meats, and the Duracell copper-top battery tester. He amassed over 80 patents and was still working on new ideas when he passed.

He mentored other inventors, spoke at conferences and in classrooms and was greatly loved by an international community of innovators. In 2012, he was one of the first inductees into LLNL's Entrepreneur Hall of Fame.

Bob enjoyed the outdoors and staying active. He and Nancy fell in love with the game of tennis in the late 1960s and played it (and jogged) regularly for decades. Up until the end, he did his sit-ups and push-ups every morning. He loved going to Silver Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains every summer, enjoying hiking and kayaking. And despite very large feet (size 15), he always enjoyed a good swing on the dancefloor with his wife and daughter. He had many friends who knew him for his jovial nature and terrible puns.

Along with his wife, Nancy, and children, David Parker (Shari Simon) and Linda Hamilton (Doug), he leaves behind his grandchildren Jessalyn, Ali, Molly, Matt, Ben and Max. He will be greatly missed.