Robert Charles Paulsen, Sr. ROUND ROCK, TEXAS: It is with great sadness that we inform you of the death of husband, father, grandfather, brother and friend, Robert Paulsen, Sr. who passed away at age 91 on January 23, 2010. He was born on January 18th, 1919 in Orange, NJ, the son of Carl and Augusta Paulsen. Bob married Alice Repsher in 1942 and together they raised five children. Bob served in the Army during World War II in the Pacific and in Europe. He brought with him skills he learned from his childhood working with homemade radios, skills that he honed while working at IBM. While in Europe Bob worked with a team of German POWs installing radio towers. He became a favorite of these men and their mothers. One of the mothers sent him a “thank you” note for his kind treatment of her son. After his Army service Bob returned to IBM to work with computers where he was the first to build a transistorized (instead of tube) computer. This was built with transistors personally fabricated by his own hand. During these years he earned many patents related to the design of computers. This work brought him to Poughkeepsie, New York in 1958. Bob had creative talent and enthusiasm for building things. He made deluxe homes for all our pets: a coop for the chicken, a hutch for the rabbits, a kennel for the dogs. Hamsters and a parakeet had hand-made cages, and two crows had a coop. For his daughter he made a doll house with electric lights and for all his children, an outdoor clubhouse. His reputation as someone who could fix almost anything spread far. One day Bruce Springsteen came to Poughkeepsie for a concert and found his guitar amp was not working. The local electronics store sent him to Bob who fixed it on the spot. He had basement full of tools and parts for almost anything, especially electronics. Bob was a life-long HAM radio enthusiast (W2KPZ) and made many friends in that community. It was through this activity that Bob met some very close friends from Germany, the Zöllers. Alice and Bob made a number of trips to Germany and the Zöllers in turn visited us in Poughkeepsie. They now seem very much like family. Several of them were able to come for a visit just this past December. Bob’s ancestry is from Germany and Denmark and in the1980s while visiting the area he and Alice met many other descendants from the same extended family. Bob even went to school and learned to speak German. After 46 years in Poughkeepsie, Bob and Alice moved to Texas in 2004. Bob asked that there be no memorial service and that in lieu of flowers donations be sent to the SPCA in Dutchess County New York or an SPCA in the Austin area. Bob and Alice have often made donations to the Dutchess County SPCA at 636 Violet Avenue, Hyde Park, NY 12538. See http://www.dcspca.org/mainpages/page2.htm#Donations. Bob is survived by his wife Alice, his three natural children Robert, Richard and Kathryn, two adopted nephews, John and Steve Repsher, eight grandchildren and his brother Carl.

Bob Paulsen, W2KPZ