Robert E. Hess

Robert E. (Bob) Hess was born on December 27, 1932, to George and Priscilla Hess in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, and died on September 11, 2026, in Hilliard, Ohio. Bob lived a remarkable life filled with family, friendships, travel and a lifelong love of engineering and learning. He graduated from Lebanon High School and enrolled at Penn State University, graduating with honors in 1954 with a B.S. in Aeronautical Engineering.

A year later, he began his aerospace career at North American Aviation in Columbus, Ohio.

Four months later, the U.S. Air Force activated Bob’s ROTC commission, and he was assigned to Sandia Base in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a second lieutenant for instructor training in the maintenance of nuclear weapons. Completing his training in July 1955, he was then assigned to Lowry AFB in Denver, Colorado, where he instructed Strategic Air Command crews on the assembly and testing of Mk 15 and Mk 21 thermonuclear bombs.

Completing his tour of duty with the U.S. Air Force in March 1958, Bob returned to North American Aviation in Columbus, where he spent five years working on the U.S. Navy’s RA-5C Vigilante, a Mach 2 carrier-based bomber and reconnaissance aircraft. This work included a one-year assignment in Palmdale, California, where he supervised flight testing related to dynamic aircraft stresses and loadings. He also worked for a year in North American’s Space Division in Downey, California, studying and developing the earth-launch capability of the S-II stage of the Saturn V moon rocket.

In 1970, Bob left North American Aviation and accepted a position in the Engineering Department of Jeffrey Mining Machinery Co., where he served as a project manager. In the early 1970s, Bob also had a second job with COSI as a weekend building manager. People who remember the original COSI on East Broad Street may remember the mining shaft exhibit. That was Bob’s creation!

In 1976, Bob was named Jeffrey’s Director of International Sales. In 1979, Jeffrey chose Bob to be part of a 24 person State of Ohio Trade Mission to the People’s Republic of China, led by Governor James Rhodes. The delegation made history as the first state level trade mission after the United States and China formally normalized diplomatic relations, a moment Bob was proud to have witnessed firsthand. Before flying to Beijing, the Governor arranged a dinner for the delegation to meet and honor Soichiro Honda, retired board chairman and then Supreme Adviser to Honda Motor Co., Ltd. The event also acknowledged Honda’s then-recent decision to build a motorcycle plant near Marysville.

Over the next 14 years, Bob’s work took him to 48 countries on six continents, where he made sales calls, visited customers and developed business relationships around the world. He was instrumental in the sale of Jeffrey equipment to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, England, Brazil, Canada, Mexico, the Soviet Union and China. He continued in that capacity until the company was sold in 1995 and continued with part time consulting work for the company until 2004.

In 1953, he married his high school sweetheart, Gloria Fuhrman, beginning a marriage that was an important part of his early life. They had 3 daughters, Cindy, Pat and Sharon. Later, Bob married Dee Montgomery. Along with Dee came, as Bob would say, “a two-year old, Cheerio-throwing toddler” named Niki, whom he later adopted. In 1996, he married Lisa Petruzzi.

Bob’s life took him around the world and introduced him to people from many different cultures. His career gave him the opportunity to do work he loved, but it was the people he met along the way who mattered most to him. The people were always more important than the business. He never saw his customers and colleagues simply as people he worked with or hoped to sell a machine to. Instead, he formed deep, lifelong friendships with people around the world—friendships that began through business but became so much more.

The friendships he formed through his years in the Knights of Columbus and during a Cum Christo Weekend were among his greatest treasures.

Bob is survived by his wife, Lisa and daughters Cynthia Leland, Patricia (Ross) Bridgman and Sharon (Dave) Rich, all of Columbus, and Nicole (James) McKay of Brisbane, Australia. He is also survived by four grandchildren: Trevor (Sarah) Rich and Nigel (Abby) Rich of Columbus; Maria Leland (Roselyne Cepko) of Bar-le-Duc, France; and Benjamin (Sarah Ingles) of Columbus. He also lived to be a great-grandfather of his first great-grandchild, baby Daphne June Leland.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Respite Ministry of Scioto Ridge United Methodist Church, which supports families caring for loved ones in the early to moderate stages of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia.

The family would like to thank the staff of The Inn at Library Way, especially those in The Brooke Memory Care area, as well as Capital City Hospice, for the gentle and compassionate care they provided to Bob.

A visitation will be held on Saturday, October 3, 2026, from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m., followed by a funeral service at 11:00 a.m. at Scioto Ridge United Methodist Church, 4343 Dublin Road, Hilliard, Ohio 43026. Following the funeral service will be a luncheon at Scioto Ridge United Methodist Church.