Robert "Bob" Johnson

The full and adventurous life of Robert Lee Johnson began on February 11, 1933 when he was born to Clarence and Adelia Johnson. Anxious to get life started, Bob was born on a cold winter day under a buffalo robe in the sled that was transporting his parents to the hospital in Tyler, Minnesota. His older sister, Phyllis, and younger brother, Dennis, arrived in a more conventional manner.

Bob grew up on a ten-acre dairy farm on the edge of Tyler, milking Guernsey cows and delivering milk around town. After graduating from Tyler High School (where he helped write the school fight song) in 1951, he started his music studies at Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis, then transferred to a (then) two-year accredited school, North Park College in Chicago. There he met and courted Ruth Hoyer. They were married in 1953 and were the parents of four boys: Jeff, Greg, Stan, and Bill. The marriage ended in 1984. Ruth died of cancer in 1995.

Bob transferred to the University of Minnesota to get his music degree, but was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1954. He was stationed in Bavaria, Germany as part of the Army Band that performed around West Germany. Their first son, Jeff, was born there in 1955. Returning to the United States, Bob began his career in the medical equipment field with Ethicon Surgical Technologies, later working for Puritan Bennett, maker of anesthesia and respiratory care equipment. The tragic death of five-year-old Jeff from heart infection on a valve in his windpipe spurred Bob’s interest in the cardio-pulmonary branch of medicine and was the driving force behind his invention of the oxygen concentrator, for which he received a patent in 1975. He founded Mountain Medical Equipment, outside of Denver, Colorado. Bear Stearns took the company public in 1982.

In 1984 Bob retired from the company, but not from life. In time he and his three sons founded Foothills Medical Equipment to make and market his second patented invention, a molecular sieve regenerator. They eventually sold the company. Bob married Susan “SueBee” Foy in 1988 before he moved back to Tyler to build a new home and to live out his retirement where he had grown up and still had many relatives. The marriage ended in 2005. Bob passed away peacefully on Tuesday, November 11, 2025, at The Neighborhoods at Brookview in Brookings, South Dakota, at the age of 92 years and nine months.

Bob’s involvement in the medical equipment world had him living all around the United States and traveling the globe, once flying the Concorde from New York to London. At a slower pace, he took a cruise through the Panama Canal. He could tell stories about meeting interesting people in business and government, even a tour of the Oval Office in the White House, where he was told that holes in the floor were the cleat marks left by Eisenhower’s golf shoes. He served the American National Standards Institute to set standards for anesthesia and respiratory equipment, and then did the same work for the International Standards Institute. Bob’s local service included nine years as chairman of the Tyler Hospital Board.

Bob loved the Lord. He was brought up in the Baptist church, and his faith in his Lord carried him through life. He filled offices in a number of congregations as he moved around the country. His nightly routine included a time of prayer and meditation.