IN MEMORIAM

Robert Wilson Brazelton

Extension Agricultural Engineer, Emeritus

UC Davis

1918 – 2006

Robert Wilson Brazelton (Bob) was born December 3, 1918 on his grandfather’s (Alexander Brazelton) cattle ranch forty miles west and south of Denver, near Elbert, Colorado. In 1923, grandpa sold the property and Bob’s father took a job with Safeway Stores moving the family many times during Bob’s school years. When his father lost his job, the family lived briefly on a small subsistence farm where Bob experienced the hard work of hand tool farming. In 1936, Bob graduated from high school at Sparta, Missouri, and was named the valedictorian of his class. He received a scholarship to Southwest Missouri State Teacher’s College, in Springfield, a short distance from Sparta. Bob passed the state examination with a primary school teaching credential, and returned to Oldfield (near Sparta) to teach in a two-room school for portions of 1936 through 1938.

 

After his stint at teaching, he decided to head for Southern California where the budding aircraft industry, fueled now by war clouds gathering in Europe, was expanding and seeking young workers. Bob had an interest in, and an aptitude for, mechanical devices, as well as, for drawing and illustrating. He was hired by Douglas Aircraft Company, given a short course on aircraft design and assembly, and put to work. Encouraged to advance, he took further classes on production of technical manuals and moved on to become a technical illustrator, then technical writer, and lastly, head writer in the Technical Manuals Department.

 

One of Bob’s technical team members was Dorothy Schneringer who was born and raised in Whittter, attended Pasadena Jr. College and graduated from University of California, Los Angles (UCLA) in 1943. She came to work as an illustrator with Bob’s team and also shared many personal interests with Bob. However, their lives were not to run an uneventful course. In the fall of 1944, Bob’s deferred status (defense work) with his draft board ended; as the manuals were completed, and Douglas’ management could no longer justify deferment for the writers, Bob applied for Officer Training School. He was sent to Fort Benning, Georgia; there he was commissioned as second Lieutenant. Japan surrendered on September 2, 1945, and Dorothy and Bob decided to be married before he was sent to Japan for a year of service as a bomb disposal officer.

 

Upon his return to the United States, Bob enrolled at UCLA (with a GI bill support) in the College of Engineering. Near the end of his third year, Bob met Professor Roy Bainer, then head of the Department of Agricultural Engineering at UC Davis. He persuaded Bob that rapidly expanding Agricultural mechanization held a promising future for Agricultural Engineers. Bob took a summer session orientation course during his senior year in Agricultural Engineering at Davis. After graduation in 1950, he took a job with the Blackwelder Manufacturing Company in Rio Vista, California, and worked as a design engineer of agriculture machines. A family emergency took the family back to Los Angeles and Bob returned to aero/space employment as a rocket test stand engineer for Rocketdyne Corporation. Five years later they came back to Sacramento (now with two children, Bill and Nancy) where Bob continued rocket test work with Aerojet General.

 

In 1965, Bob began a new career as an Extension Agricultural Engineer with the Agricultural Engineering Department at UC Davis. This was to span the next 23 years; a career that utilized his background and training to meet the mounting need for Agricultural Worker Training and Safety.

 

Bob was asked by the California Department of Agriculture to organize a series of Extension meetings on Farm Safety throughout the state. This was being done to acquaint farm operators with farm safety developments through research work being carried on by the University. This included work by Akesson and Yates on spray atomization and distribution, spray drift losses and closed mixing, and handling of pesticide chemicals. Bob helped to develop various spray equipment teaching aids including a spray distribution test stand. Later he developed a short video of sprayer operation including the test stand operated with an assortment of good and bad nozzles. This video titled “Engineering Payoff” received the American Society of Agricultural Engineers (ASAE) Blue Ribbon Award in 1968, and was aired on the NBC program “Existence.”

 

Bob followed up earlier work by Extension engineers Parks and Curley on an Easter Lily nursery project involving a low-height, self-propelled vehicle for moving workers through the plantings. He also worked with pesticide and fertilizer injection systems for the nurseries, which injected these materials into the irrigation systems. This became a part of the newly introduced pesticide chemical closed mixing and handling systems regulations, and was required for all pesticide applicators including aircraft. The Federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was introduced in the late 1960s, and shortly after, Bob was assigned by Extension Service Director Alcorn to work with the California State Department of Agriculture and the State Division of Industrial Safety to aid in the development and implementation of the California Occupational Safety and Health Act (CAL OSHA) safety regulations. In 1973, Bob took a leave to attend classes at the University of Southern California for a Masters Degree in Occupational Safety, meanwhile continuing his work with CAL OSHA organizing meetings and workshops on the new regulations. In May of 1975, in recognition of his contributions to agricultural safety programs, he received the National Safety Award from the National Safety Council of Farm Conferences for Outstanding Services to Farm Worker Safety. In 1975, he completed his study program and received an MS degree in Occupational Safety from University of Southern California (USoCAL). Bob served on the State Agricultural Worker Safety Board for five years and in 1971, he was given the additional University title of Associate in the Agricultural Experiment Station. He was a ten-year member of the Board of Directors of the National Institute for Farm Safety and the Rural Occupational Health Committee, and an active member of the National Safety Council’s Farm Safety Division.

 

Bob brought his safety knowledge to the Agricultural Engineering Department’s shops and laboratories, served on the Department’s Safety Committee and helped to make them safer for students and shop workers.

 

Bob and Dorothy’s children, Bill and Nancy have moved to distant homes, Nancy, and her husband Chris Philleo live in Pennsylvania, and Bill and his wife Donna live in Phoenix, Arizona. Bill and Donna’s daughter Carlyn and her husband Gary Parker live in nearby Gilbert and their second daughter, Emily attends the University in Flagstaff, Arizona. Dorothy is active in volunteer work and plans to continue living in the family home in Davis, California where she retired after a thirteen-year teaching career with the Woodland district primary schools.

 

Robert G. Curley

James M. Meyer

Norman B. Akesson