Robert V. Garvin

Dear Lido Shores Neighbors: Andrew Garvin is trying to gather as many photos and recordings (audio and/or video) of Bob as he can. Anything that's already in digital form can be transmitted to Andrew as an email attachment unless it's very large. Anyone with one or more very large files (or images in non-digital formats) should simply call him or send him a message by email and he'll work with you to identify an alternative method. Andrew's email address is ajgarvin@gmail.com and phone number is 617-527-2084.

Robert V. Garvin
22 August 1927 – 27 June 2017

“On July 29, 2007, The New York Times – a newspaper Robert Garvin read every morning and admired immensely – ran an obituary of a woman named D.D. Ryan, who was famous only for one thing: encouraging Kay Thompson, another woman, to write a book (about The Plaza Hotel in New York, and about Eloïse, its resident imp). That’s a thin basis for immortality, but encouraging for the rest of us; we deserve at least as much.” That’s how Robert Garvin imagined his own obituary in The Times might begin. His family decided the LSPOA newsletter or website would have to do.

Robert Victor Garvin was born in 1927 in Vienna, Austria. When the Nazis arrived in March 1938, his parents put him on a train to Brussels with a small German-English dictionary in his pocket, and from Brussels he went to England to attend King’s College School, a boarding school where his older brother was already studying. His parents and younger sister were able to flee from Austria into Poland. Although relatives there pleaded with them to stay, saying that there had always been anti-Semitism and that the “Hitler crisis” would blow over like all others, his father did not like the way things were developing, and that autumn took the family to England. In 1945, the family emigrated to the United States, changing their surname from Grünspan.

Garvin served in the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Service in Germany before attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In March 1950, shortly after graduating from MIT, Garvin joined the Aircraft Engine Division of General Electric – first in Lynn, Massachusetts, then moving to headquarters outside Cincinnati. He worked for GE for more than 42 years in various positions – engineering, manufacturing, project management, negotiating and administering international license agreements, and finally in international marketing – a career that he genuinely loved.

At the time of his retirement in 1992, Garvin was Vice President and General Manager of GE’s Aircraft Engine Overseas Operation and had established offices around the world. In this role, he was responsible for developing new markets for GE’s Engines, with the most challenging markets being the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union (and then Russia after the end of the Cold War).

As early as 1976, there had been approaches from the Soviet Union about buying American aircraft engines for commercial use, but it was not politically acceptable to the U.S. Congress. In 1989, after perestroika, discussions resumed and culminated in the purchase by Aeroflot of five Airbus airliners with GE engines, soon followed by other purchases and leases. After GE’s Chairman, Jack Welch, met with Russia’s President Mikhail Gorbachev at the Kremlin, Garvin was asked to organize a program to train Russian aviation executives in GE’s management school in Crotonville, NY. Garvin felt they were all capable engineers but lacked skills not needed in a socialist economy — marketing, product support, paying attention to the customer. He was confident they all became advocates for GE.

Garvin had a dry and often self-deprecating sense of humor. His secretary once told him how much she admired his demeanor. Hunting for the right word, she said “You always look so pompous.” She quickly corrected that to “dignified,” but he always assumed and liked to recount that she meant exactly what she had said the first time. Years later, an elegant elderly Englishwoman said of him, “An absolute poseur… just like my late husband.” Garvin explained to his family (unnecessarily) that the word is French for “a phony.” Amplifying the word play, he said he’d really prefer to be remembered not for his poses but for his sons and grandson.

After retiring from GE, Garvin taught courses on international issues at the Institute for Lifetime Learning of the University of Cincinnati and at The Longboat Key (Florida) Education Center. He wrote an authoritative book about the confluence of technology, money, and politics in the aircraft engine industry (Starting Something Big; AIAA Press, 1999), and – as a favor to his brother – a book about the founding of the MIT rugby football club (We Were Young Then; MIT, 2004).

Throughout retirement, Garvin continued to study history and foreign affairs and he kept a daily journal. His journal notes sometimes evolved into elaborate written and illustrated reports on trips and vacations. When he’d written about events that included his sons, they sometimes shook their heads in wonder: had they and dad really been on the same trips? On Sundays, Garvin did The New York Times puzzles in ink, competing long distance with his sister to see who got them done in less time. She generally claimed victory; he generally was skeptical.

Garvin has lived since 1992 in Sarasota, Florida, where he purchased an architecturally significant house on Lido Key with his wife and became active in the Sarasota Architectural Foundation, including serving on its board and hosting frequent tours of his home. He also served on the board of Gloria Musicae (now Choral Artists of Sarasota) and as president of his neighborhood association, a group of high-achievers who held him in equally high regard, like most people whom he met and with whom he worked throughout his life.

Bob Garvin died of complications of cancer on 27 June 2017, at age 89, in Sarasota. Bob was married to Rita Tobi Katz of Cincinnati for 43 years until her death at 69 in 1999. He was also preceded in death by his parents, his older brother Stephan, and his younger sister Evelyn McCabe. He is survived by his sons Andrew Garvin (and wife Elizabeth) of Newton, MA and Anthony Garvin (and wife Lisa Mackintosh) of Mahwah, NJ, by his grandson Joshua Garvin of Seattle, WA, and by his loving companion Julie Greenleaf Magenheim of Sarasota.

A memorial service will be held in Sarasota in the fall.

The family suggests that memorial donations be given for cancer research to the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA or to the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, FL.