- Date Of Birth: May 14, 1933
- Date Of Death: July 18, 2018
- State: Idaho
Robert Richard Rohrdanz, 85, of Idaho Falls, passed away July 18, 2018, at his home surrounded by his wife and family. He was under the care of Nuclear Care Partners, Alliance Home Health and Hospice, and his loving wife and family.
He was born May 14, 1933, to William Albert Rohrdanz and Martha E. Jannusch Rohrdanz in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and spent a significant time at his grandparents’ dairy farm in Mauston, Wisconsin, where he enjoyed his interactions with many cousins and acquired his appreciation for hard work and farming. He attended the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee for one year, and then attended Northwestern preparatory School in Minneapolis for five months. He was then admitted to the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy, Kings Point, from which he graduated as valedictorian of his class in 1957. His second academy year was spent on two merchant ships that sailed to West, South, and East Africa, and several Mediterranean countries. This experience gave him a great love of travel, a trait that was deeply ingrained in his character and part of his future careers.
Upon graduation, he worked in the California aerospace industry. He found aerospace technology, driven by the space race, extremely challenging and rewarding. After 16 years in this field, he looked for a new challenge and switched to the nuclear power industry. This led him to INEL and Idaho Falls, Idaho, in 1976. After working on LOFT and several other challenging programs, he accepted an assignment as an exchange engineer at the Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (JAERI) in Japan. In addition to his regular duties there, he had soon volunteered to teach conversational English to fellow employees and to local high school students.
After the five years of his research assignment in Japan ended, he remained in Japan. He and his wife opened and operated a small English school for ten years until they returned to his home in Idaho Falls, Idaho, in 1997. For the next ten years until he fully retired, he continued his consulting business in which he reviewed and edited technical papers authored mainly by Japanese researchers in various fields.
His fascination and interest in science and technology never dimmed. He continuously wondered “how” and “why” about things throughout his life.
