Robert Stephens Watkins

On December 7, 1941, Bob, then 18 months old, was in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, with his mother and father, a Naval Officer. Fifteen and a half years and half an ocean away, his mother drove him to the military recruiting depot in San Antonio, Texas. There, she signed papers allowing him to enlist in the Navy on that day, his seventeen birthday. After earning his high school equivalency certificate the following year, Bob received a presidential appointment to the Naval Academy, along with an option to attend other universities at the Navy's expense.

Bob chose the University of Mississippi, so he could pursue his deep interest in Southern literature. After he had studied there two years, the university president recommended that Bob be allowed to transfer to Tulane University to assist the Chairman of the History Department with a pioneering oral history project that would preserve the recollections of prominent Southern writers. So Bob transferred to Tulane, and, in addition to keeping up with his coursework, manned the tape recorder during interviews of, among others, William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams.

When he graduated from Tulane, Bob was commissioned an Ensign in the United States Navy. He was a shipboard officer in the Cuban Missile Blockade in 1962, and a small-boat group commander during the Dominican Republic crisis of 1965. In 1967, Bob resigned his commission to attend law school under the GI Bill.

Graduating first in his class from American University Law School in 1970, Bob joined the Tax Division through the Attorney General's Honor Program. After several years of outstanding work, Bob was transferred to be a Reviewer in what is now the Court of Federal Claims section. In addition to his supervisory work, Bob handled a series of complicated and important cases involving industry-wide issues common in the major steel companies. In 1985, Bob became an Assistant Chief in Civil Trial Western and in 1995, the Chief of Civil Trial Central. Upon the retirement of Civil Trial Western Chief Jerry Fridkin in 2002,Bob returned to Western Chief of that section.

During his tenure in the Tax Division, Bob has supervised three trial attorneys who went on to become Civil Trial Section Chiefs.

He is survived by his wife, Barbara, son Ivan, daughter-in -law Angelique So, and sister Emily.

All services will be private.

Please consider making a donation in Bob's name to the:

SPCA of AA County

1815 Bay Ridge Ave.

Annapolis, MD 21403