That wholesome influence, in an industry that can be fractious at the best of times, was lost to us on February 18 when Bob died of cardiac failure. It’s difficult to imagine a successor of equal ability or influence; there’s hardly a development on the practical side of the US industry that isn’t a legacy of Bob’s involvement. He was in particular a good friend and a supporter of T&TNA. We are among so many who will miss him. Among his many contributions to T&TNA, Bob wrote a Viewpoint in March 2004 titled ‘Tunneling: A business or Russian roulette with paper bullets?’ and the many Frontier-Kemper projects featured in T&TI and T&TNA include application of the V-Mole blind shaft sinking machine to excavate the tourist access shaft at Hoover Dam, in Nevada (T&TI, Dec 1991, p35), and the Ashlu Creek TBM tunneling hydro project in this issue of T&TNA.
Bob retired in December 2007 from his senior management position with Frontier-Kemper after more than 37 years with the company. But even in retirement you could catch Bob on the phone in his Evansville headquarters’ office, which was an Aladdin’s cave of mementoes from his early days in the mining business, his years in the civil tunneling industry, and of company and personal awards and recognitions and of his favorite hobbies of writing, about anything that came to mind, and gun sports, which, as a fervent advocate of the second amendment, he promoted and supported with equal enthusiasm as tunneling and mining.
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After attending the Colorado School of Mines, Bob’s rise to the top most level of Frontier-Kemper management began in 1960, when he and two partners formed and operated Hardrock Contractors, a specialist tunnel and mine construction company, and progressed through foreman with Climax Molybdenum Company; engineer with Homestake Mining Company and a designer and sales rep for Denver Air Machinery before joining the Kemper Frontier JV as project manager for on the Gathright Dam Cut-Off Wall contract in Virginia in 1972. With formation of Frontier-Kemper he managed construction of coal mine shafts and slopes until he became mining group general manager in 1978. He was then promoted to executive vice president in 1989 and elected a company director in 1994.
Bob was a 38-year member of SME and served for 12 years as a director of AUA (American Underground Construction Association) and was on the first board of its successor, the UCA of SME. He served a term as president of the American Society of Civil Engineers Construction Institute and was chairman of the 1995 RETC conference.
Bob leaves his wife of 34 years, Peggy and their family of four girls, three boys, 14 grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Robert A Pond Robert A Pond
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