Robert Louis Ferris Jr. ’53

    Bob was born in Plainfield, N.J., and came to Princeton after graduating from Plainfield High School. He joined Terrace Club and majored in basic engineering, writing his thesis on “The Application of Time Study and Motion Analysis as a Basis for Wage Incentives in the Chemical Process Industries.” 

After graduation, Bob attended the Navy’s OCS program at Newport, R.I., and then Mine Warfare School in Virginia. He served on the USS Cormorant fleet minesweeper, becoming executive officer and taking the ship to the Western Pacific before ending his service in Japan. 

Leaving the Navy in 1956, Bob earned a master’s degree in business management at Rutgers and then joined Western Electric as an industrial engineer. In 1976, the company (having become AT&T) relocated Bob and his family to Little Rock, Ark., where he remained until his wife died in 2008. Returning to New Jersey, he settled in Greenbriar and became active in the Point Pleasant Historical Society. 

Bob died April 26, 2023, of complications of Parkinson’s disease. He is survived by his three children.