Robert Gilman Weinland

Robert Gilman Weinland, 79, of Sarasota, FL (previously a long-time resident of Warrenton), died April 19, 2016, in a vehicle collision in Fort Myers on the way to the airport to fly to Rome, Italy, to celebrate his upcoming 80th birthday with family and friends. Born in Somerville, NJ, to Clarence and Jean Winifred Weinland, Bob graduated from Stanford University in 1958 with a B.A. in History. While at Stanford, Bob was a member of Alpha Sigma Phi and worked as the advertising manager for the Stanford Daily. During summers, he fought fires as a Fire Suppression Crewman with the Kern County Forestry and Fire Dept. After graduating college, Bob served as an intelligence specialist in the U.S. Army. While posted in Coburg, West Germany, a town surrounded on three sides by the East German border, he met Gisela Raab. On their first date, they discovered that they shared a love of Beethoven. Bob and Gisela were married in Coburg in 1961, and shortly thereafter moved to Bologna, Italy, where Bob was a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In 1962, the couple moved to China Lake, CA, where Bob performed research on the subject of deterrence as part of the Advanced Sea-Based Deterrent Program. From there they moved to Northern Virginia (Falls Church, just outside Washington, DC.), where Bob worked for many years at the Center for Naval Analyses, followed by the Brookings Institution, and Rekenthaler Technology Associates. In 1995, Bob decided to use the opportunity of the "peace dividend" to move out of the world of defense analysis and turn his attention to other pursuits. He started two businesses (Welcome to Washington, an audiotape guide to the Nation's Capitol, and Pest Forecasting Group), both of which proved interesting and challenging. In 1999, Bob and Gisela moved to Warrenton, VA, where Bob served as a Fauquier County election official, became President of the Warrenton Stamp and Coin Club, and lovingly tended his backyard "fig and asparagus farm." They remained in Warrenton until the end of 2015, when they moved to Sarasota, FL, in search of warmer climes. Bob shared a wide range of interests with Gisela throughout their 55 years together: history and politics, science and technology, classical and rock music, art, stamp-collecting, wine and gardening. For years, he would write the family's annual Christmas letter, themed to some aspect of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," in which he would comment on events both private and public. A recent project was researching Otto Meyer, a German painter, one of whose works the family had inherited. They took in several foster children over the years, both formally and informally. In addition to his wife, Gisela, Bob is survived by his children: Audrey Stevenson of Sebastopol, CA, Christina Bergen of Rome, Italy, Stephan Weinland of Richmond, VA, as well as Heather Sutherland of Greensboro, MD, Jessica Curry of Seattle, WA, and Amelia Simpson of Portland, OR. He is also survived by his grandchildren: Sebastian, Benjamin, Baxter, Tristan, Hendrix, and Caleb. His sister, Shirley Weinland Hentzell, died in 1999; he is survived by his niece, Karen Savitzky, of Seattle WA. The family held a private service on May 2, 2016. Bob was buried with military honors at Sarasota National Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the family suggests that contributions be made in his honor to Doctors Without Borders (donate.doctorswithoutborders.org).

Tributes

Robert Gilman Weinland

April 19, 2016