Robert David Reinsel

Robert David Reinsel of Fairfax, Virginia, passed peacefully away Monday, January 27, 2025. He was the son of Robert Delmore Reinsel and Susannah McGranahan Reinsel of Redbank Township, Clarion County, PA. He was preceded in death by them and his daughter Lynn Maria, his sisters, Mary Suzanne Reinsel Miller, Margaret Therese Reinsel Allison, and his brother Edward Ignatius Reinsel. He is survived by his loving wife of 66 years, Bernice (Bernie) Bauer Reinsel and his children Beth Anne Reinsel Young (Louis Young), Robert Michael Reinsel (Deborah Reinsel), and Joseph Reinsel, and his grandchildren William Young, Seth Reinsel, Sara Reinsel, Leo Reinsel, and Henry Reinsel.

Robert's early education took place in a one-room schoolhouse near his home. After graduating from high school, he attended Penn State University, earning a degree in Agricultural Education. He served as an assistant county agent in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, for three years before becoming a vocational agriculture teacher at Redbank Valley High School in New Bethlehem, PA. He later earned a Master of Science degree from the University of Maryland, graduating Summa Cum Laude. He continued his doctoral education at Michigan State University. Robert joined the Economic Research Service (ERS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), where he spent his entire career. His work took him to Rome as a delegate to the World Fertilizer Conference, a subset of the World Food Conference. During the 1970s he was on the International Fertilizer Commission and in 1983, with a team of statisticians and economists, worked with the Pakistani government to develop a methodology for measuring food production.

In 1991, he went to Mongolia on loan to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the World Health Organization. There, he evaluated the country’s capacity for open market agricultural products. In 1992, he served on a team from ERS to develop an understanding of free market economies in Eastern Europe. During this time, he traveled to Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Bulgaria on agricultural analysis projects. He retired from ERS as the data coordinator for the National Economic Statistic Service (NASS) and ERS.

During his retirement years, he worked alongside his wife, as she continued her career in Mary Kay Cosmetics where Bernie was an executive senior director.

He has lived in Fairfax City, VA with his beloved wife since 1969. He met Bernie in 1953 at her family’s farm where they attended a square dance together. They were married on Thanksgiving Day, 1958 at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Lucinda, Pennsylvania. They have been members of St. Leo the Great, Catholic Church in Fairfax for 55 years. He enjoyed spending time with his family and liked to play Chinese checkers with his children and grandchildren. Traveling the globe with Bernie was his main avocation. In his high school yearbook, it said that he would be a world traveler. By the end of his life, he had traveled to 60 countries and 47 U.S. states. These trips were funded by Bernie’s Mary Kay work.

Another of Robert's interests was researching his family history, which connected him to Ireland, England, Scotland, and Germany. He discovered that the Reinsel side of the family settled in Pennsylvania before the Revolutionary War and that his surname was previously spelled "Reintzel." Although he identified more with his German heritage, he found out he was more Irish.