Robert Harley Weller

Harley made everyone in his life feel wonderful. He was a loving husband for 41 years, a good son and brother, and a caring friend. Professionally, he was a part of the early Holography industry, and he spent the last 20 years in the Aerospace industry. He was a great man with a delightful sense of humor.

Harley was preceded in death by his daughter, Morgan Elizabeth Weller; his parents, Elizabeth and Linn; his brother, Michael; his nephew, Michael Jr.; and many friends.

Harley is loved and remembered by his wife, Sharon; his sister, Linda and her husband, Mark; his sister-in-law Lynn abd Kristi, Penny, and their family; Lisa Caldwell Goldstein and the Goldstein family; the Mendoza family; the Usual Suspects: Kevin, Bill, Jimmy, and Steven; Oscar and Sylvia Perotto and their children, Martin and Lara from Switzerland; Claudia from Seattle; extended family and so many friends he made over the course of his lifetime. His friends were his family.

Robert Harley Weller was born in Corpus Christi, texas, to Elizabeth and Linn Weller on April 22, 1953. As the middle child, he was raised with his older brother Michael, and his younger sister, Linda.

In grade school there were 7 Roberts in his first grade class and half of the kids took their middle names so the teacher could get to know them individually. Harley was one of the children who took his middle name. He was named after his great uncle, who told young Harley, "I hope this name serves you well".

Harley's father was in the army, and he was first stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii. The family moved to Corpus Christi and then the kids grew up in Tullahoma, Tennessee, south of Nashville, where his father took a job at the rocket test facility as a test engineer in the aerospace industry at Arnold Airforce Base, where they did work for NASA.

Harley was an inquisitive child who admired his father so it makes sense he would study hard in school and do well in math.

Tullahoma was an interesting place to grow up, and after WWII as part of Operation Paperclip, many German scientists lived around the Airforce base in Tennessee. There were characters all over the place and Harley remembers one of the German wives speeding her car through town running all the stop signs.

Harley attended grade, middle, and high school in Tullahoma. He's still good friends with Donna Whitfield, who he met in the 8th grade. Harley took STEM courses in college to please his father and he always worked hard in his studies. He graduated from the University of Tennessee Knoxville with a BA. While he loved his hometown, he joked the best view of it was in his rearview mirror. He wanted to explore the world.

He met a young woman whose father was physicist Dr. Ken Haines, and followed her to California, where he worked with Dr. Haines in Holography. He sold his first holograns to be used on the Mastercard and Visa credit cards. Criminals were printing the credit cards at a faster pace and the holograms prevented them from stealing the credit cards or making duplicates.

Harley ended up in New York, where Dr. Haines was taking sculpture lessons with Sharon's mother. A week later, Dr. Haines' wife Mavis and Sharon's mother played matchmaker, and introduced Harley to Sharon. Sharon invited Harley, who had a new car, to Cape Cod for a week. They laughed, fell in love, and were married eight months later, on April Fool's Day, april 1, 1984. They joked if the marriage didn't work out they could say it was an April Fool's Joke. Shortly after their first Thanksgiving as a married couple, Harley's father died of a stroke. Harley was devastated, and turned to his career and worked for 20 years in Holography for Science Applications who had a contract with NASA and his own company with Ken, Edetic Images.

Harley was proud of his 3 National Geographic Magazine covers as the main holographer. His covers were published in 1984, 1985, and 1988. He was very proud of his National Geographic magazine holographic cover of the African Taung Skull of a child, used to illustrate an article entitled, "The Search for Early Man". That magazine cover became so famous, it's still available online for purchase. He co-authored a patent in 1989 for security diffraction devices that make it difficult to duplicate credit cards.

In 1994, they moved to Santa Cruz and Harley started a new company with Dr. Haines to create Upper Deck holographic baseball cards. They were a hit! Harley moved back to Southern California to run a lab at Fiber Space in Torrance. He was the recruited by Carolyn Hoffer to work at Northrup Grumman, where he spent 20 years as a Senior Test Engineer in laser and fiber research and development programs in the speciality of optics working in Aerospace at Northrup Grumman. His work earned him a secret security clearance. He was proud of being selected to do the final cleaning of the three lenses of the James Webb Telescope. He was the best on optics and made sure those lenses were spotless. He loved his work and he only retired last April.

The love of his life was Sharon. She was a textile designer and Mikhail Baryshnikov once asked her to design body suits for him. But she backed off the job offer because she did not want to deal with any of the toxic dyes.

After she moved to Los Angeles, Sharon interviewed at different places, including Ralph Lauren in Beverly Hills. She thought everyone looked so unhappy there. So she interviewed with Ruth at St. John Knits in Camarillo. Through the years Sharon worked at St. John Knits, Versace, Burberry, St. John Knits ay Nordstrom's, and her last job was at Ralph Lauren in Beverly Hills. Through it all, Harley supported her career, and she supported his career. They were proud of each other, and Harley always said about Sharon, "I chose well".

Ultimately Sharon loved Harley because he made her laugh. He loved music and his favorite singer was Neil Young. Harley loved Southern BBQ ribs, collard greens, and pickled foods. His favorite restaurant was Lucille's Barbeque. They went to Musso and Frank's every year, and also enjoyed Mexican food at Casa Vega. He loved Jack Daniels because he grew up 10 miles from the distillery. Harley was easy going and outgoing. He loved being around Sharon and her friends. He adored her friends and they adored him, too.

Harley and Sharon enjoyed a lot of traveling through the years. They visited Yosemite, San Francisco, South Beach, Miami, and they rented a house boat on Lake Powell for a week. They traveled to Europe several times, England, Italy, Spain, and Venice. They wanted to go to Japan, Sharon had lived there as a child of 10, and it was on Harley's bucket list, along with Ireland and Scotland.

Harley loved watching C-Span Senate hearings before they were popular, reading books by James Patterson and Michael Moore, and watching Quentin Tarantino and Wes Anderson films. He loved every Sean Connery movie ever made, with his favorite as "The Untouchables". He loved Bruce Lee and studied karate in college with a famous Japanese master. He was an animal lover, and had cats- Kosmo, Tuna Roll, and Ebony. One of their Abyssinians lived to be 18 years old, with another 14.

Swimming in their pool and puttering in the garden were his joy on weekends.

In the end, Sharon played the song "Harvest Moon" by Neil Young on her cell phone. She told Harley "I love you", and he passed away listening to his favorite music.

Sharon and Harley's journey started with a trip to Cape Cod and it will end in Cape Cod when Harley is laid to rest in the Oak Grove Cemetery in Massachusetts on April 23, 2025. It's come full circle in Cape Cod.