Robert Bob Claude MacDonald

Robert Claude MacDonald (Bob) passed away in the hospital in the early morning of Friday, June 20, 2014, with his wife Martha Frances MacDonald (nee Varnell) close beside him. He was born in Detroit, Michigan, July 6, 1941, to Claude Oris MacDonald and Ruth Gwendolyn Cottrell MacDonald. He met Martha at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where she was a graduate student in the Music School. They married September 7, 1962, in Waco, Texas, and celebrated their 50th anniversary in 2012. After living in Houston, Austin, and The Hague, Netherlands, through the 1960s and 1970s, Bob and Martha moved their family to Austin for the second time in 1978, where they have lived since. They have two sons, Robert Scott MacDonald and wife Glenda Pittman of Austin and Richard Charles MacDonald of Los Angeles, and two grandchildren, Katherine MacDonald of New York and Thomas MacDonald of Austin.

Bob graduated in 1959 from Kimball High School in Royal Oak, Michigan, where he excelled in trumpet and was voted “Most likely to succeed.” He received a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical and Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Michigan in 1963. After five years as a reservoir engineer working for Michigan Consolidated Gas Company, he entered the graduate studies program at The University of Texas at Austin, where he obtained a Master of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering in 1970 and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1972. Bob worked as a petroleum engineering consultant for Intercomp, Inc. in Houston, and in 1975 became Vice-President and General Manager of their European Operation in The Hague, Netherlands. During this time he performed reservoir engineering studies on fields around the world. From 1978 until 1981, Bob served on the Petroleum Engineering Department faculty of The University of Texas at Austin and as an Adjunct Associate Professor until 1999. In 1981 he started Intera Petroleum Technologies with Charles Tutt. He joined Platt, Sparks and Associates in 1988 where he testified as an expert witness before various regulatory bodies and trial courts and has served as a court’s expert. He was a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, the American Associates of Petroleum Geologists, the National Society of Professional Engineers, and the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

Bob had a dry sense of humor and wit. He immensely enjoyed good food and wine, had a keen appreciation of art and music, and was an avid reader of history. He enjoyed his family, especially his grandchildren Kate and Tom. He had a practical, no-nonsense approach to life, but also a bit of a streak of stubbornness, borne of his certainty of what he liked and appreciated in life. He and Martha enjoyed travels together and with their whole family to Scotland, England and The Netherlands. Recent highlights included a tour of Prague and Vienna with KMFA and a trip to the Panama Canal on the Queen Elizabeth. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

In addition to his family listed above, Bob is survived by his older brother John MacDonald and his wife Sherry of Brethren, Michigan, and their children and grandchildren, and by his brother and sister-in-law Richard and Elizabeth (Varnell) Smith of Houston, and Maurice and Jerre (White) Varnell of Florence, Texas, and their children and grandchildren. He was predeceased by his parents and a nephew, Andrew Christopher Varnell.

Donations in Bob’s memory may be made, if desired, to KMFA Classically Austin Radio, 3001 North Lamar Ste. 100, 78705; The University of Texas Cockrell School of Engineering Friends of Alec, 301 E. Dean Keaton, C2104, Austin, TX, 78712; or the Salvation Army, Austin.

Arrangements under the direction of Cook-Walden Funeral Home, Austin, Texas.