Robert Aitken

Robert Ramsay Aitken died in Durango March 13. He was 86 and had been battling prostate cancer for several months.

Raised in Iowa, Bob was the son of Dr. William A Aitken and Elizabeth Ingersoll. His father practiced veterinary medicine and also taught it as Iowa State University. Bob earned his degree in Geology from Iowa State, but he considered his Eagle Scout Badge to be one of his most important accomplishments. He enlisted in the Marine Corps at age 18 and fought with the USMC 2nd Division in Saipan and Tinian. He was proud of his sniper skills but reticent about a stab wound that earned him a Purple Heart. Semper Fi, he was recalled to Camp Lejeune to train recruits during the Korean War.

Bob married Judith Burrus in 1949, and over 62 years of marriage they migrated from Wichita, Kansas, to Rome, to Brussels, to Washington, and finally to Durango, with countless trips in between. In 1963, after many years as an independent geologist in Kansas, he got the notion to work overseas and was soon based in Rome, Italy, and
traveling throughout Europe, Africa and the Middle East as a troubleshooter for an Oklahoma drilling rig manufacturer. Bob had a talent for making friends across cultures, and a great enthusiasm for understanding the world. He loved words but couldn’t be bothered declining foreign verbs, so he decided to speak Italian by learning only nouns- and that worked out OK. His intrepid sense of adventure was infectious and made global citizens of the whole family. Daughter Connie went off to Paris alone at age 17, Judy led a tour to the Soviet Union in 1965, and both she and daughter Lee each made trips to
post-Soviet Bulgaria to push through the adoption of granddaughter Sophie.

It was that same sense of adventure that brought Bob to Durango in 1980 after a decade in Washington, D.C. During his time at the Environmental Protection Agency he worked with Rep. William R. Roy to enact the first Clean Drinking Water Act. He moved over to the Department of Energy to head up the Oil and Gas Division when he came to Ignacio in 1980 to give a speech to the Southern Utes and was persuaded to become the tribe's Energy Resource Coordinator. In retirement he continued to evaluate oil and gas estates for the I.R.S. but never lost his appetite for travel. Well into his 80’s he would hop into his beloved VW Beetle and drive thousands of miles to see friends or family. He loved hunting pheasants, bicycling, tennis, ping-pong and cribbage tournaments at Snow Down. He had a scientist’s love of data and observation: he always knew the date the geese would begin nesting on the island behind the downtown fire station and how much oil the US had imported the week before. Fittingly, he asked that his body be donated to scientific research through ScienceCare of Aurora, Colorado.

He is survived by his wife Judith and daughters Constance and Janet Lee and granddaughters Jennifer and Sophie. A memorial service will be held at the Doubletree Inn on Mar 24 at 4 p.m. and everyone who knew Bob is invited to share their memories. Contributions in his honor may be sent to Hospice of Mercy, 3801 Main Ave., Durango 81301