Necrology
Robert “Benk” William Behnke '55
Nov. 11, 1934-Jun. 5, 2022
Robert “Benk” William Behnke ’55 died on June 5, 2022, in Beaverton, Ore. Born in Brooklyn on Nov. 11, 1934, he attended James Madison (N.Y.) High School.
On the Hill, Benk majored in chemistry and joined Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He was a member of the lacrosse team all four years and the Block “H” Club as a junior. That same year, he actively promoted the Campus Fund, began the first of two years on the Intramural Council, and served on the staff of The Hamiltonian. As a senior, he edited the yearbook section devoted to on-campus organizations. Due to academic difficulties in his final semester, he did not graduate until 1956, though he always maintained his allegiance to the Class of 1955.
In June 1956, he began working for Thiocol Chemical Corp. as a mathematician and programmer in its reaction motors division. To enhance his work, he studied mathematics at the University of Hawaii. Later, he studied nuclear engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. He left Thiocol in 1959 to become an operations analyst at Technical Operations, Inc., of Burlington, Mass. Also in 1959, Benk married Mary Susan “Sue” Dawe in Eugene, Ore. They had two daughters and two sons.
By 1966, he was general manager of Control Data Corp.’s Western Pacific division and concurrently president of its subsidiary Pacific Technical Analysts, Inc., in Honolulu. In these capacities he worked at their offices in Bangkok, Thailand, for a time. Benk also lectured on business analysis and statistics at the University of Hawaii and at Chaminade College, both in Honolulu. In 1971, he was elected president of The Systems Corp. Sometime thereafter, the family moved from Hawaii to Lake Oswego, near Portland, Ore., where he continued as president of Aegis Systems Corp., a division of The Systems Corp.
Reflecting in his 50th reunion yearbook, Benk described four successive stages of his career. He “designed and developed military command-and-control systems; designed, developed, and sold computer systems and services; taught data processing courses at the college level in the U.S. and Asia; [and was a] consultant on advanced public transportation systems and services.” He also noted he received American and Canadian patents for a low-cost, door-to-door transit system.
Benk supported the College as a volunteer for both the Priorities for Hamilton capital campaign and the Career Center. He valued particularly the public speaking and writing skills he developed while on the Hill, describing them in his reunion yearbook as “a great asset in my professional life.” He reflected on another lesson as well: “I learned to ‘stop and smell the roses’ occasionally, while working on serious problems/obligations.”
Robert “Benk” W. Behnke is survived by his wife and four children.
