W. Nelson “Skip” Roberts, 91, of Newtown died peacefully Wednesday, September 3, in the presence of his family, following a brief illness. He grew up with his younger sister, Gertrude, in rural New Monmouth, N.J., where he was born August 14, 1923, and regularly attended services at the New Monmouth Baptist Church with his parents, Agnes and Wilbur Roberts.

He was a graduate of Red Bank High School, and continued his education at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Penn., from 1941 to 1943. His studies were put on hold while he served in the Aleutian Islands, as captain in the US Army Air Force Reserves toward the end of World War II.

Upon returning to Bucknell for his senior year, Nelson received his nickname, “Skip,” and met his future wife, Jeane. They graduated together in June 1947, receiving degrees in mechanical engineering and social science/English, respectively. They were married August 29 of the same year, in Riverdale, N.Y.

The newlyweds immediately relocated to Connecticut, where Mr Roberts started working in Bridgeport at Manning, Maxwell & Moore, developing aircraft instruments. Shortly thereafter, the Robertses moved to Fairfield, where they started their family with Carole and Keith. In the early 1950s, Manning, Maxwell & Moore sold an aircraft products division to Consolidated Diesel Electric, which subsequently became Consolidated Controls Corporation. In February 1956, the Robertses and family of three, now including K. Lee, made the move from Fairfield to Newtown.

Mr Roberts was one of a dozen key people with the aircraft products division that spun off to form Unimation, where he worked on the world’s first industrial robot, the “Unimate,” a one-armed robot with a magnetic memory drum for a brain. The Unimate was used in car manufacturing and was placed on display at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal, Canada.

Not long after moving to Newtown, the Robertses became active in town affairs. They began attending the Newtown Congregational Church around 1957, when their fourth child, Connie, was born. During the 1960s and 1970s, Mr Roberts was on the Newtown Planning and Zoning Commission, helping the town grow in an orderly fashion. As a member of the Newtown Rotary Club, he joined the World Help Foundation and helped create water purifying filtration systems for a third-world country.

Additionally, he volunteered with other Rotarians at the Danbury Community Soup Kitchen, the Newtown Labor Day Parade Hot Dog tent, and at many Rotary Pancake Breakfasts. He supported his wife in her position as co-chairman of the Candidates Screening Committee for the Republican Town Committee and her service on the Newtown Board of Education. The Robertses continued to be active members of the community into the 21st Century.

In 1965, the Roberts family grew with the birth of Christopher. For the next decade, the Robertses tried to maintain their work and community obligations while raising a large family. For leisure activities, Skip enjoyed bowling and playing golf with coworkers, playing tennis with anyone who would play with him, and developing simple computer programs in the 1980s. He was always active.

Mr Roberts retired in 1986, four years after Westinghouse Electric Corporation purchased Unimation and decided to stop building hydraulic robots. Soon after, Joseph F. Engelberger, former president and CEO of Unimation, asked him to work at Transitions Research Corporation (TRC) in Danbury. Together they designed the first HelpMate, an autonomous courier used today in hospitals to deliver food and other items to patients. He retired from TRC in 1995.

He received a Certificate of Recognition from NASA in 2004 for the creative development of the Anthropomorphic Robotic Testbed, ART, a two-armed, mobile, sensate research robot, described in NASA Tech Brief MSC-22985.

The Robertses spent their retirement years traveling all over the United States to visit with their children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, siblings, and friends. They also traveled abroad with People to People to Australia, China, Hong Kong, Israel, Greece, Egypt, Spain, and England. Other retirement activities included golfing with the Twisters, skiing in Colorado with a few of his children, and watching just about any sport on TV, especially UConn women’s basketball. In the last decade, Mr Roberts engaged in several new hobbies, including working with wire jewelry and lathe woodworking. All the while, he remained an active Rotarian, a trustee for the Newtown Meeting House, a choir member at the Newtown Congregational Church, and an avid golfer.

In 2001, the Robertses became great-grandparents.

Mr Roberts’ personal philosophy was to appreciate all that God had given him. He felt that the Lord had been good to him, and that he lived in the best of times. During the double wedding celebrations of his son Christopher and granddaughter Carolyn at the Newtown Meeting House on August 10, 2014, Mr Roberts enjoyed the presence of all his family members, including all of his great-grandchildren. W. Nelson “Skip” Roberts will be missed dearly by all who knew him.

His beloved wife of 67 years, Jeane M. Roberts; five children and their spouses, Carole and Roger Tripp of Newbury Park, Calif., Keith and Sherie Roberts of Southbury, K. Lee and Douglas Tirpak of Lake Worth, Fla., Constance H. Roberts of Danbury, and Christopher J. and Laura Roberts of Encino, Calif.; six grandchildren and their spouses, Jon and Margaret Tripp of Salem, N.H., Kimberly Tripp of Pasadena, Calif., Benjamin and Keri Tripp of Oregon City, Ore., Kate and Sean Albee of Miami, Fla., Carolyn Roberts Poit and Rob Poit of Buffalo, N.Y., and Matthew Roberts of Austin, Texas; his sister, Gertrude “Trudy” Lindemann, and husband Richard, of Pompton Plains, N.J.; three great-grandchildren; and several nieces, nephews, and cousins survive Mr Roberts. 

The Roberts family is planning a memorial service to celebrate his life, Saturday, September 13, at 3:30 pm, at Newtown Congregational Church, 14 West Street, with a reception immediately following.