Robert M. Blinn

1926 - 2015

Robert (Bob) Blinn passed away peacefully at his Coronado residence at 1400 Glorietta Boulevard. He was 88.

Robert Murray Blinn Jr. was born in Pasadena, Ca, in 1926 to parents Robert Murray Blinn Sr. and Billie Akin Blinn

It would be understatement to say that Bob Blinn led an active life.

By his early teens he showed an enthusiasm for all things mechanical and took up building and racing hotrods. He joined racing clubs and in cars put together with scavenged parts, spit and baling wire they terrorized Pasadena with impromptu and illegal drag races up and down Los Robles and Colorado Boulevard. He often told of once breaking an unofficial speed record in a rod with an orange crate for a seat.

Later he served in the US Navy in the South Pacific in WW2 where he was stationed aboard an aircraft carrier and a supply vessel. They were perhaps the proudest times of his life and he spoke of those days as if they were yesterday.

On return from the war he married his high school sweetheart Billie Tobin and together they had three boys, Robert III, David and James. Later on he would re-marry and produce a daughter, Katie, named for his grandmother.

They moved to Newport Beach and enjoyed the beach lifestyle. Bob bought his first powerboat, the Betty-Lou, and he often made the crossing to Catalina. His love for boating and the ocean began there and continued throughout his life. He was a familiar fixture at the Coronado Yacht Club where he was a member for 35 years. He kept his sportfisher, The Katie B, backed into the slip so he could putter or read the paper and greet his friends and fellow members from the cockpit. For many years he kept his boat halftime in Cabo San Lucas for the marlin tournaments.

In the sixties Bob used his considerable mechanical engineering talents to establish an aerospace parts machining company called Acro-Mill and another one later on called Acro-Trace where he fabricated parts for civilian and military aircraft and later for all of the space shuttles and other NASA projects. His work was of the highest quality and in great demand by clients Lockheed, Boeing, McDonnell Douglass, Rockwell and others. Bob was among the first to upgrade from drill presses and milling machines into the cutting edge computer-controlled four axis fabricators that could take a block of titanium in at one end and hours or even days later produce an aircraft valve or Delta rocket fuel pump block or space shuttle external panel within specifications and tolerances measured in microns. He was rightly proud that parts he milled in his Huntington Beach plant were going into space on almost every NASA mission.

He took a break from work in midlife and returned to car racing. This time it was nitro-fueled funny cars that could rocket from zero to 150 mph or more in under 8 seconds. He ran his cars all over Southern California and collected many trophies and speed records.

He retired from racing and returned to aero-space. He started the Huntington Beach company in his fifties with a $10,000 loan and built it into a multi-million dollar corporation in a few short years. In his early sixties Bob sold Acro Trace because "it wasn't fun anymore" and "retired" again to enjoy the quiet life in beautiful Coronado in his condo on Glorietta with a view of his boat right across the street at the CYC.

But true to his restless nature he then began investing in real estate and soon acquired a sizable portfolio of residential and industrial rentals managed by his son James. To the very week of his passing he was working on numerous improvement projects on the commercial properties as well as at home.

Ever restless and eager for new challenges, Bob Blinn lived enough life for four men.

He is survived by his widow, Beatrice, daughter Katie, and sons David and James as well as five grandchildren and one great grand-daughter. He was one of the lions and he will be missed.