Obituary

Russell Robb, senior vice-president and treasurer of Stone & Webster, Inc., and, since 1895, a Member of the Institute, died February 15 at Phillips House, Boston, after a brief illness of one week. Born at Dubuque, If., he was graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1888. For three years he was in the engineering service of the Thomson Electric Welding Company at Lynn, Mass., but left it in 1891 to join the engineering organization of Stone & Webster at Boston. He had been a classmate of both C. A. Stone and Edwin S. Webster in the Electrical Engineering course at M. I. T. In 1905 he was made a member of the firm and in 1920 became senior vice-president and treasurer of the company. He was an officer and director of many public utilities in the traction, light and power field and as early in his career as 1896, brought out the book “Electric Wiring.” During the period 1909–11, he was lecturer at Harvard University on public utility topics and his Lectures on Organization were privately printed in 1909. Mr. Robb, in his pioneer association with the firm of Stone & Webster, was known throughout the public utility industry as a wise leader, kindly and modest in disposition and much beloved by all those with whom he came in contact. He was prominent also in the civic life of his home town, Concord, Mass., serving as trustee of its public library and a member of many technical and social clubs. He was also a director of many business interests from Cape Breton to El Paso and from the Puget Sound to Key West.