Robert Boyce Heater

Bob was born in Cary, North Carolina on February 27, 1929 to Russel O. and Jessie C. Heater. He graduated from Cary High School and attended N.C. State University for two years before he was called to active duty as a 2nd Class Petty Officer in the Navy on December 26, 1950. During the Korean War, he drew on the skills he had developed as a young man working for his father’s water well drilling company, Heater Well Company, to teach well drilling and heavy equipment operation at Port Hueneme, California.

After he was released from active duty in April 1952, Bob returned to Cary and worked as a salesman and shop superintendent at Heater Well, but was quickly promoted to the position of vice president and later president of Heater Well. In 1954 Bob began courting Nell Ruth (Biddy) Huffman, a movie-star gorgeous administrative assistant at N.C. State’s Wolfpack Club. Bob quickly won over Biddy and, more importantly, her young daughter, Erica Jean (Ricki). They were married on February 19, 1955. In 1960, Bob started a second business, Heater Utilities. He served as president of Heater Utilities until it was sold to Minnesota Power in 1987. During his tenure at Heater Well and Heater Utilities, Bob provided water to thousands of citizens and businesses across the Carolinas.

Bob also made great contributions to the water well industry working with professional organizations such as the North Carolina Groundwater Association and the National Water Well Association (NWWA). He served as the treasurer of the NWWA’s Board of Directors from 1965 to 1966 and as the NWWA’s president in 1968, inspiring the NWWA to award him the Oliver Man-of-the-Year Award in 1969. Bob made one of his greatest contributions to the water well profession when he began a successful campaign to develop a standardized certification program for well drilling professionals in 1969. In honor of this work, the NWWA’s Water Well Journal dedicated a 1986 article to Bob entitled “Can One Man Make a Difference?” (the answer was “yes”) and named him one of the “Most Influential People in the Ground Water Industry” in 1989. Bob’s other greatest contribution to the water well industry came in 1976 when he helped structure the Environmental Protection Agency’s Manual of Water Well Construction Practices and authored the Manual’s master key for the NWAA’s well water standards.

Bob was a prized volunteer and public servant in North Carolina starting when he fought his first fire as a volunteer fireman in Cary at the age of fifteen. He served as a volunteer fireman for twenty years, chaired Cary’s Fireman Relief Fund for ten years, and served as the first president of Wake County’s Fireman’s Association in 1956. In 1974 Wake County’s voters elected Bob to the Wake County Board of Commissioners where he served until 1990. As a County Commissioner, he oversaw the Special Airport Tax District, which financed and planned a new runway at Raleigh Durham International Airport. Bob also served on the North Carolina Low Level Radioactive Waste Management Authority at the behest of North Carolina’s Speaker of the House of Representatives. In 1990, Governor Jim Martin recognized Bob’s lifetime of service to North Carolina with the high honor of an Order of the Long Leaf Pine award. After retiring from the County Commissioners, Bob continued to serve his community on the Board of Directors of the Cary Area Emergency Medical Services until 2003.

Bob’s dear wife, Biddy, predeceased him in 2000. Bob is survived by: his daughter Ricki Heater Grantmyre and Ricki’s husband William E. Grantmyre Sr.; his grandson William E. Grantmyre Jr. and his great-granddaughter Amelia Grantmyre; his grandson Robert S. Grantmyre, Robert’s wife Jennifer Grantmyre, and his great-grandson Bryce Grantmyre; and by his granddaughter Laura Scott Grantmyre.

His family will celebrate his life and many accomplishments with a Funeral Service at 11 am on Friday, June 10th at Brown-Wynne Funeral Home in Cary, NC. Family will receive friends prior to the service from 10 to 11am at the Funeral Home. Burial will follow the services at Hillcrest Cemetery in Cary.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.BrownWynneCary.com for the Heater family.