Robert Fitzgerald was born on Long Island, N.Y., on March 4, 1929.  He was the second child of Edward Fitzgerald, from Open Hall, Newfoundland, and Marie Kernal Fitzgerald of Vienna, Austria.  At an awards ceremony in France, it was said of Bob that he mastered the land, the sky, and the sea.  This is an appropriate introduction that pleased him very much.

Bob grew up with his older sister, Martha, and his younger brother, Eddie, on a small family farm near Trenton, N.J.  Depression era farming was difficult and he vividly remembered working the land behind mules.  Bob also remembered the excitement (and fear) he felt when the farm finally received electricity under the Rural Electrification Act.  Self-reliance and ingenuity were essential for survival in that environment, and Bob often said the farm provided the best preparation for his career in engineering. 

Bob and his brother developed a passionate interest in flight at an early age; spending as much time as possible building and flying model airplanes, and haunting the local airstrip.  By the time he was 18, Bob had a commercial flying license and was crop dusting and doing aerobatics.  Over the next several years, Bob and his brother earned enough money crop dusting to purchase three airplanes.  From a landing strip they formed across their farm, they flew their Stearman, Taylor Cub, and Piper Cub.  They had many wonderful adventures in those last days of real barnstorming.

After his brother completed his service in the Navy, both of them enrolled in college.  Bob earned a B.S in engineering from Rutgers in 1956.  Tragically, Eddie was killed in a flying accident during the summer between their junior and senior years.  This ended Bob’s flying career, but he parlayed that interest and experience into a successful career in aerospace engineering.  Bob earned two more degrees during his career: a M.S.E. from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a MBA from the University of Hartford.

Bob started his career with Pratt and Whitney, in Florida.  Some of his work was in the F-series military jets.  It was in Florida that he met his wife, Theodosia Gibson, and it was there that their first child Mary Laura was born.

Bob was transferred to Connecticut where his son, Edward, was born.  He left Pratt and Whitney and began working for Chandler Evans.  Here he extended his reach beyond the skies and into the heavens as he worked on the early Apollo projects.  Bob became an expert on boundary layer dynamics and much of his work was on control systems and missile guidance. 

Back on the farm, at the age of 10, Bob quietly fostered another dream.  He wanted to build a boat with his father.  He sent some hard-earned money to Popular Mechanics magazine and purchased the plans for the sailboat he had selected for the project.  He was 55 before the dream took on any substance.  It was then that he saw the tired remnants of Talisman.  For the next eight years Bob realized his dream with that laser beam intensity he engaged on important tasks.  Rebuilding that boat was largely a solitary physical task, but it opened an entirely new world to him; cruising.

On Talisman, Bob explored roughly half the globe from Central America to Russia.  Bob acquired a profound understanding of the areas he explored, but his stories from these travels invariably focused on the wonderful people he met and friends he made in his journeys.  Bob absolutely cherished the friends he made in the sailing world and the marvelous time his daughter was able to spend on some of his voyages.

Bob came ashore in 2004, to spend his final years helping his son restore the old farm house where he lives with his wife, Larragh.  Bob once again focused his laser beam on that project which contains architectural details and workmanship equal to the work he put into Talisman.

Bob was an independent man who always charted his own course.  Even during the final years of declining health, he believed in better times to come and always made decisions that would maximize the experience of living.  Life itself is what he believed was most important.