Robert Spies

Robert Spies, a recent resident of Gasan, Marinduque, Philippines, whose natural brilliance and broad interests led to a lifetime of learning and innovation, died at home on July 7, 2025, of complications from an abdominal aortic aneurysm. He was 87.

Robert was born January 23, 1938, in West Chester, Pennsylvania, the first child of Dr. Otto Robert Spies and Annie Rosalie Mitchell Spies. He spent his childhood in rural Lionville, Pennsylvania, attending the one-room-school taught by Miss Edith Moore through 6th grade. He continued at the Joint Junior-Senior Highschool in nearby Downingtown and graduated in 1957 from Henderson Highschool in West Chester.

Some of Robert's most cherished memories were of his Lionville years: welcoming 3 younger siblings; growing up with puppies, kittens and farm animals; family picnics under the ash tree; savoring the best ice cream and caramels at The Guernsey Cow in Exton; sledding on his Flexible Flyer; and hefting hay bales and milking cows on his Uncle Ed Tryon's dairy farm. He enjoyed recalling encounters with the cows...one in particular, for whom he removed a painful pebble from her cloven hoof, and how she just couldn't stop licking him in gratitude.

From an early age, Robert tinkered, determined to figure out how things worked. By the time he was in high school, the TV business was booming. From his mentor, Mr. Fred, he learned how those TVs worked and how to repair them. In 1957, he built his own TV in time for the family to watch President Eisenhower's inauguration on the 1inch screen. After high school, he learned the ins-and-outs of small-film production, assisting the film's sound man, Bob Clement, during the filming of the cult classic The Blob. The following year, he shared the credit for the sound recording for another of Irvin 'Shorty' Yeaworth's horror/sci-fi films, The 4D Man. He then worked at ABC-TV in Philadelphia, operating and maintaining camera, sound and transmission equipment, while also moonlighting as film projectionist at the Coatesville Auditorium movie theater or the Exton Drive-In movie theater.

In the 1960s, he worked at UNIVAC (producer of the first commercially available computer), stepping into the fast-evolving world of computing. At Burroughs Corporation, he joined a materials engineering team developing specialized applications for electroplated wires that enhanced conductivity and reduced resistance.



In the 1970's, Robert moved to Fairbanks, working at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska. He built, installed and maintained numerous systems to enable scientists to study astronomical spectra, the upper atmosphere, the aurora, and even seismic data. One was a gyro-stabilized "star tracker" for airborne observation and logging of the spectra of Mars and Venus aboard NASA's Convair 990 research aircraft Galileo II; during normal flight it was accurate to within a few tenths of a second of arc. Another, installed in a number of ionosondes around the world, used microwaves to transmit ionosonde data, with pulse synchronizing circuits to remove noise from the signals. Yet another was a battery powered VHF radio relay system for transmitting seismic data from about 30 remote stations on the Aleutian Peninsula and neighboring islands. He installed a telephone and intercom system (acquired from government surplus) at the Poker Flat Research Rocket Range. The list goes on...

Starting during this period, but continuing into the 1990's, Robert visited the South Pole Station a total of seven times, first installing, then intermittently upgrading and repositioning the ionesonde transceiver he had designed.

While living in Alaska, he got his pilot's license. Typically, he was also moonlighting, this time at the University of Alaska TV and radio station. He also contributed to the installation of equipment for the then new PBS TV station, KUAC - TV, channel 9, in Fairbanks. That required several program channels to accommodate satellite feeds for native educational programming sent to the villages.

Radically changing his career trajectory, now turning 40, Robert pursued another passion - pipe organs! By this time, he had already taken several European tours organized by the Organ Historical Society, that gave him the opportunity to examine and listen to some of Europe's oldest surviving pipe organs. In 1980, he moved to Eugene, Oregon, and began assisting Master Pipe Organ Builder, John Brombaugh. While there, he designed and built an electronic system designed to simplify the setting of temperament, an essential step in the tuning of organ pipes. A back injury forced his withdrawal.

Following a move to Pittsburgh, Robert worked at Carnegie Mellon University as Senior Staff Engineer, where he stayed until 1988, when he returned briefly to the world of film at West Hills Studios. In the 1990's, Robert participated in projects in fields entirely new to him as a Project Design Engineer. At NOMOS, (now Best NOMOS) he helped develop a system that tracks the unintentional body movements of patients undergoing radiation treatment. He also designed a precision-motion device, a "Hexapod" (Stewart Platform), for positioning holograms that aid visualization during neurosurgery.

Robert moved to the west coast in the 2000's, and at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), in Moss Landing, California, he developed new systems for control and sensing aboard the Remotely Operated Vehicle 'Ventana" used in marine research. He finished his remarkably diverse career in Palo Alto, at Digeo, Paul Allen's technology company, by completing the circuitry for a then, state-of the art set top box.

Robert enjoyed more than 20 years of retirement. Moving near family in Baltimore, Maryland and then in Portland, Oregon, he enjoyed countless family meals and holiday festivities. In October 2004, he and his sister Diana took a once-in-a lifetime trip to Moscow and St. Petersburg, joining an international collection of paternal cousins, to tour the site of ancestors' residences and businesses and simply to experience Russia. In July 2010, his sister Maya took him on a driving tour to Crater Lake, in Oregon, and then south along the California coast. They visited places where Robert had worked, had old friends and colleagues, and where the church pipe organ he had helped to install in 1980, was in regular use, thirty years later.

Robert never stopped tinkering, collecting a lifetime supply of potential parts, and hiring himself out to repair faulty electronics and anything else that caught his interest. He was able to solve virtually any mechanical or electrical problem that was presented to him. Robert was a one-of-a-kind, who really did know something about almost anything you might ask him. He could always explain complicated things simply. He will be greatly missed.

In 2017, Robert moved in with his nephew, Peter Inslee in Hillsboro, Oregon. It was then that he met Shirley Sadiwa, and in September 2019, he and Shirley married and moved to Kirkland, Washington, where Shirley was still employed. They have lived in the Pacific since Shirley retired, most recently, with Shirley's son Maynard Sadiwa and his wife Lilibeth, in Gasan, on the island of Marinduque, Philippines, where Robert was welcomed warmly into their family.

Robert is survived by his wife, Shirley Sadiwa Spies; brother, Nicholas Spies of Walls, MS, (Beth); sister, Maya Spies of Green River, WY; sister, Diana Spies Pope, of Wayne, PA; son-in-law Maynard C. Sadiwa (Lilibeth), and daughter-in-law Maylene C. Sadiwa; granddaughters-in-law Sophia Alyssa C. Sadiwa and Sandra Alicia D. Sadiwa; nieces, Karin Spies Kovacs (Chanan Braunstein), Highland Ranch, CO; Victoria Spies and Alexandra Spies of Walls, MS; Anne Badger Wilson (Andrew Wilson), of Portland, OR; nephews, Peter Jenkin Inslee, of New Castle, DE, and Theo Skye (Kitiya), of Bell Canyon, CA; great-nephews, Finn Ethan Chenot and Otto Hitchcock Chenot, of Portland, OR; great-niece Honor Elizabeth Kovacs and great-nephew Samuel Nicholas Kovacs, of Highland Ranch, CO; and cousin, Janice Tryon Donan Fossum, of Colchester, CT.