Robert John Beaver

Robert John Beaver was born on March 27, 1937 in Mt. Carmel, Pennsylvania and passed into eternal life on August 13, 2019. He grew up in Kulpmont, a small coal mining town in Central Pennsylvania. During his high school years, he worked as an apprentice tailor, which led to his love of sewing projects later in life. He graduated from Bloomsburg State Teachers College (now Bloomsburg University) in 1959 and taught junior high school science and mathematics for several years in Middleburg, Pennsylvania before returning to graduate school. In 1964, Bob completed an MS in Mathematics from Bucknell University and enrolled in the graduate program in Statistics at the University of Florida. It was here that he met Barbara Mattick, a new graduate student who was assigned to be his teaching assistant. They were married in December 1970.

After completing a PhD in Statistics with a minor in Mathematics, Bob opted to take the position of Assistant Professor at the newly formed Department of Statistics headed by F. N. David at the University of California, Riverside. Dr. Beaver spent his entire career at Riverside, moving through the ranks to Full Professor. His research areas included paired comparisons and skewed distributions including the skewed normal, skewed Cauchy, and skewed logistic. His consulting was mainly confined to agricultural/natural science projects at UCR. During his time at Riverside, he served on administrative committees of the University, and most notably served as chairman of the Department of Statistics as well as chairman of the faculty of the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. After 35 years at Riverside, he retired in 2005 as Professor Emeritus and Statistician.

Bob has been an author for Cengage Publishing Company since 1966, developing Study Guides for a number of introductory statistics texts, and participating as a co-author with William Mendenhall and his wife Barbara M. Beaver on several statistics textbooks. In November 2018, he and Barbara completed another revision of their textbook, “Introduction to Probability and Statistics” (Mendenhall/Beaver/Beaver), now in its 15th edition.

Bob’s first priority was always his family and he involved himself in all of his children’s activities. Over the years, he served as Cubmaster for Pack 274 in Riverside and as an Assistant Scoutmaster for Riverside’s Troop 2. He and Barbara taught Sunday School and led the youth group at Trinity Lutheran Church for many years. They also volunteered as “uniform parents” for the Blue Star Regiment at John W. North High School from 1990-1996, measuring, altering and fitting uniforms for about 100 band members, and tagging along as chaperones to help them dress during competitions and parades.

Bob was an active member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Riverside for over 45 years, serving on the church council, the endowment committee, the education and youth committees, the quilting ministry, the Trinity choir and helping with property projects. He also participated for the last 15 years in a three-day leadership ministry called Lutheran Cursillo of Southern California, serving on more than 30 weekends.

Bob is survived by his wife Barbara, his daughter Krista Beaver Goodman and her husband Steven Goodman, his son David Carleton Beaver and his wife Casey Jones. He has four grandchildren—Riley Nathaniel Goodman, Elise Cordelia Goodman, Danica Paige Beaver and Nathan Robert Beaver.

A memorial service in celebration of Bob’s life will be held on Sunday, August 25th at 3 pm at Trinity Lutheran Church, 5969 Brockton Avenue, Riverside, CA 92506. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Trinity Lutheran Church OR Lutheran Cursillo of Southern California, 26051 Spur Branch Lane, Laguna Hills, CA 92653.