Robert J. Stanley

The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution announces with great sorrow the death of Robert James Stanley October 26, 1999 at his home in Falmouth. He was 72.

Bob was born June 6, 1927 in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended Rubicana Business School in St. Louis after a brief period of service in the U.S. Army in postwar Japan and then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he received a bachelor’s degree in economics in 1953. He also attended the University of Chicago from 1954 to 1957, taking graduate courses in the social sciences, and Texas Western College, now the University of Texas at El Paso, from 1960 to 1962, taking graduate courses in mathematics and physics. Bob spent the summer of 1956 working as a janitor at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, leaving to serve as business manager of the Chicago Reviewat the University of Chicago for the academic year. He returned to Woods Hole for the summer of 1957, working as a steward at the MBL Club.

Bob began employment at WHOI in September 1957 as an ordinary seaman aboard Research Vessel Crawford,working for Captain John Pike. He left WHOI in 1960 to attend Texas Western College, returning in 1962 as a marine observer for Fritz Fuglister of the Physical Oceanography Department. The following year Bob was appointed a Research Assistant, and in 1969 was promoted to Research Associate. In 1976 he became a Senior Research Assistant, and he served in that position until his retirement in June 1992.

Bob worked with Frederick “Fritz” Fuglister, Arthur “Rocky” Miller, Valentine “Val” Worthington, Bruce Warren and many others throughout the Institution during his WHOI career. He was noted for his organizational abilities on cruises, many of them in the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea and Indian Ocean, and for his original work and data analysis, particularly in hydrographic and air-sea interaction studies. He co-authored a number of publications, among them a volumetric analysis of the Mediterranean Sea with Rocky Miller and an evaluation of the accuracy and usefulness of the expendable bathythermograph with Rocky Miller and John Bruce.

Bob is survived by his wife, Helen (McCoy) Stanley of Teaticket, MA; two sons, David Payne of Berkley, CA, and Kevin Payne of Falmouth, MA; and a sister-in-law, Patricia Burns, of El Paso, TX.

Funeral services are private. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Bob’s memory to People for Cats, Box 437, West Falmouth, MA 02574 or the Visiting Nursing Association of Upper Cape Cod, 434 Route 134, Dennis, MA 02660.