Robert Erle Churchill of Madison, Alabama passed away June 24, 2023. Born June 21, 1936 in Guthrie, Oklahoma to Harley C. and Florence (Hawkins) Churchill, he lived in several places in the Southwest and Midwest through his childhood. From 1948-58 he lived in Burlington Junction, Missouri where he completed high school. He was active in sports and music and was named to the Missouri All State Basketball team in 1954. He received his BS in Physics and Math from Northwest Missouri State in Maryville Missouri in 1958. After his marriage to Carol Jean Staples, he attended Minnesota University on a Nuclear Energy Technology Fellowship, receiving an MS degree in Physics in 1960. Their first 3 children, Debbie, Kathy, and Mike were born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
In the 1960’s and early 1970’s he worked for Honeywell in Minneapolis and IBM in Owego, New York, concentrating primarily on the development and evaluation of Air Force avionics and weapon delivery systems. He was an early proponent of cost-effectiveness analysis to evaluate and optimize weapon system effectiveness. He authored or coauthored a number of papers in this area. He worked on such diverse programs as the B-1 bomber (then AMSA) avionics and Time-of-Arrival (TOA) weapons delivery techniques. Bob and Carol Jean’s fourth child, David, was born in Endicott, New York.
While with IBM, he transferred to Huntsville, Alabama to provide support to the PATRIOT (originally SAM-D) air defense missile system. He developed performance models and conducted numerous system/cost effectiveness studies in support of its development.
In 1980, he joined recently formed CAS Inc, as a partner where he continued his interest in system/cost-effectiveness analysis, as well as participating in the activities required by a rapidly growing company.
Throughout his working life, he maintained interest in sports and community activities. He was an active participant in the Huntsville Industrial Tennis League (HITL) and served as a member and officer of its Board-of-Directors. He was twice winner of the HITL Sportsman of the Year in his division, an honor of which he was especially proud because of the widely recognized level of sportsmanship exhibited by Huntsville athletes. He also served on the board of his neighborhood recreation association and on the board of the Huntsville/Madison County YMCA. He and Carol were active in several levels of Square Dancing.
He was predeceased by his wife Carol Jean in 2017.
He will be missed by his children Deborah Brown (Bob), Kathryn Falgout (Pat), Michael (Christine), and David (Connie) his grand children Bobby Falgout, Kaitlin Churchill, Christopher Brown (Taylor), Lauren Brown, Emily Churchill, and Sarah Churchill, and 2 great grandchildren.
His favorite saying was “Integrity is not a conditional word” (John D. McDonald).
