Robert Shelby Harp

Born on February 20, 1937 in New Jersey, he was the only child of Robert Smiley Harp, a civil engineer, and Helen Weems, a homemaker. Bob Harp was a scientist, technology visionary, entrepreneur, world traveler, tinkerer and aviation enthusiast.

Bob moved many times growing up. He showed an amazing aptitude in engineering from an early age and enjoyed making model airplanes from balsa wood. In his early teenage years, Bob won the West Virginia State science competition. His later teenage years were spent in Kentucky. He earned extra spending money fixing televisions when he realized many of their problems were caused by defective vacuum tubes. He also built crystal radios as a hobby and went on to experiment with various electrical circuits, radio signals, and building mechanical components.

After graduating as a member of the Class of 1959 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a degree in physics, Bob enrolled at Stanford University, where he did research in plasma physics and eventually earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering. During his time at Stanford, Bob met Lore McGovern (nee Lange-Hegerman), with whom he had two daughters, Michelle (born in 1970) and Dina (born in 1971).

He worked as a professor at Caltech and Hughes Research Laboratory. Lore and Bob settled in Westlake Village, California in 1972. In his spare time, he enjoyed tinkering in his garage, where he invented a memory board. The memory board became the first product of Vector Graphic, Inc, a successful early entrant into the budding personal computing space, he founded with his wife Lore and a friend. After Vector Graphic turned into a growing concern, Bob left Hughes to become the CTO and is credited with being an early inventor of the external keyboard. Versions of computers pioneered at Vector Graphic can be found in the Computer History Museum in Palo Alto.

After Vector Graphic, Bob founded Corona Data Systems. During that time, he met his second wife, Jeane Berry, with whom he had a daughter, Jenny (born in 1985). Following the sale of his interest in Corona, his curiosity and active mind led him to develop an electron force microscope and found Quesant Instruments.

He loved Southern California for its climate and beauty. In his adult years, you could find him on his road bike pedaling furiously around Westlake Village Island and trying to best his time, piloting his Cessna to visit his young daughters in San Francisco and San Luis Obispo, scuba diving, or skiing. He had his favorite restaurants in the area but especially enjoyed lunch at his usual table at BJ’s Brewery in Westlake Village twice per week since it opened in 2002.

Bob had a breadth and depth of knowledge that was rarely rivaled. It not only included mechanical and engineering wonders but also world history and the evolution of languages.

He was a kind man who was slow to anger, honest, had a steady character and could be beyond stubborn. On the occasions that he found something amusing, he would have amazing laughing fits.

He is survived by his daughters, Michelle Bethel, Dina Jackson, and Jennifer Harp Fitzpatrick; two son in laws Erik Bethel and Craig Fitzpatrick; his seven grandchildren (Phineas, Olin, Ana, Nico, Francisca, Piper and Pace), and great-grandchildren (Aaliyah and Layla). He is predeceased by his daughter Valesca Homrich Harp and son-in-law Edward Jackson.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family requests that donations in Bob's name be made to the Boys and Girls Clubs of Los Angeles, at https://www.labgc.org/get-involved/.