PROFILE
OF A MUSEUM VOLUNTEER Bob Specht was born April 29,
1936 in the German town area of Fresno, California to parents who were first
generation Americans of Russian-German decent. His father Kris,
was a brandy maker for the Christian Brothers Wine Company. Bob was literally
born with a pencil in his right hand, drawing pictures at a very early age
and astounding his mother Edna who often said, "There is no one who is
artistic in our family." By the second grade, Bob had
attained a 10th grade reading average as he spent most of his time either
reading books or drawing pictures. In the 7th grade, his parents enrolled him
in an art and cartooning course with the Columbia School of Art that he
completed by mail as the school was located in San Francisco. In the 8th
grade at Roosevelt High School, Bob took a Couter
Career Test that showed his first choice of a career should be a humorist.
Cartooning was already his first love, but he never pursued that endeavor. Artists
pay at that particular time was paltry, to say the least, but he kept working
at his lifelong interest in art. Bob spent 2 years at Fresno State
College majoring in of all things, business. He finally decided to pursue a
sales career with Drake Steel Supply in Fresno, after befriending the
company’s office manager Al Fox, whose son was an F-86 jet fighter pilot with
the Fresno Air National Guard. The Hayward Air Guard in the Bay Area, had
recently been transferred to Fresno, as the valley was a lesser target
potential in case of all out nuclear war. At that time, the Air Guard had an
ongoing campaign to enlist badly needed personnel to fill their ranks. With
the urging of 144th CAMRON First
Sergeant Henry Tofoya, in April 1958, Bob enlisted
with the California Air National Guard at the Fresno Airport, which was
called Hammer Field during World War II, when it was a Black Widow P-61
Bomber base. His first day assignment was to
drill 100 other green recruits, like himself, in the
art of military marching. Bob began ineptly drilling his fellow recruits out
in front of the base hanger as he had been ordered by the busy First Sergeant
Tofoya. He mistakenly marched the 100 recruits in
front of several "Hot Gun" aircraft whose weapons were fully loaded
and parked on the tarmac for immediate take off, in case of an emergency
attack. All hell broke loose as aircraft technicians came running out of the
hanger yelling to get those people out of that dangerous area. Needless to
say, Bob was embarrassed but begged off due to his total ignorance of the
danger - but the foopaw really caught everyone’s
attention. Marching drills were permanently moved to another area, away from
the main hanger after that incident. Bob spent the last 4 months of
1958 in training at Lackland Air Force Base just
outside San Antonio, Texas. He was not required to attend a technical school,
after passing a battery of tests that showed, he did
not need training as a photomapping specialist that was his Air National
Guard career choice. Bob had learned Aviation Drawing while a senior at
Theodore Roosevelt High School from a former military officer Captain Charles
Furby. There were only 2 students enrolled in the
aviation drafting course, so Bob had a lot of excellent one on one tutoring
by his instructor. By the time he graduated from high school, he had 10
semesters of drafting under his belt plus many semesters of traditional art
training. Bob became a member of the 144th CAMRON Squadron of the Air Guard
and did most of his various types of drawing in the aircraft hanger of the base. Among his achievements, Bob designed
a portable radio tower which was used at locations on and off the base,
especially during practice alerts. The Fresno Air
National Guard Base personnel utilized the tower for many years. It was
affectionately called the "Peanut Wagon" by base personnel, due to
its unusual appearance, created by the use of angular windows to defect glare
away from the tower operator’s eyes. There
were several national crises during Bob's Air Guard career, but the one that
is most memorable is the Cuban Missile Crisis during October 1962. The Fresno
airbase was placed on 24 hour high alert. Only a few of the "need to
know" base personnel were aware of Fresno's war target potential as
nuclear weapons were stored in earthen bunkers on the north side of the
Fresno Airport in large quantities, and contained vast megatons of explosive
power. As we all know, the Russians backed down and shipped their missiles
back home, but it was a shaky couple weeks for many Fresno Air National
Guardsmen. During
his 6 year stint in the Air Guard Bob drafted endless amounts of
organizational and functional charts which were used extensively all over the
base. He was named FANG Airman of the Month during 1962. Bob's deceased wife
Joan, whose father Major Roy A. "Pat" Patterson,
was the commander who delivered the first 9 P-38’s to the South Pacific
Theatre at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal in January, 1943. He was awarded a
Distinguished Flying Cross for secretly developing the air route and then
leading the P-38’s across the Pacific in a B-24 Liberator. Patterson’s plaque
is in the Veterans Memorial Museum’s Lobby of Honor. The
Specht’s have 3 daughters Vicki, Robin, and Juli who have given them 6 grandchildren. Bob worked as
manufacturer rep for RCA Whirlpool for many years and opened Clovis Home
Furnishing in 1974, operating that business until he retired July 1, 1992.
Upon retirement, Bob began doing self - taught digital artwork and video on a
Mac computer. It was amazing to him that art and video could now be created
electronically. He had one of his videos presented on a CBS network show
called "PrimeTime for Pets" about a dog
named Piston who attempts to drive and fix cars.
Bob
joined the Legion of Valor Museum in April, 2000, and began working with
Director Chuck Monges as office manager. An
interesting side note, Chuck Monges was employed
for several years in the sales department by Bob's younger brother Ken at
Liberty Chevrolet in Selma, CA. It’s a small world! Upon the passing of Chuck
Monges in 2001, Bob became the museum’s Deputy
Director under Director Art Hill. After taking a debilitating fall which
ended Mr. Hill’s ability to continue, Bob was elected April, 17, 2012 as the
Director and CEO of what is now the Veterans Memorial Museum, “Home of the
Legion of Valor”. |