| Name |
Robert Lincoln Maby |
| Suffix |
Jr. |
| Birth |
28 Aug 1921 |
Richmond Hill, Jamaica, Queens County, New York  [1, 2] |
| Gender |
Male |
| Census |
1 Jun 1925 |
9137 Napier Avenue, Richmond Hill, Queens County, New York [3] |
- Robert L Maby, Head, W, M, 34, born in US, Quartermaster
Lelia Maby, Wife, W, F, 34, born in US, Housewife
Robert L Maby Jr, Son, W, M, 3, born in US
|
| Census |
10 Apr 1930 |
91-37 109th Street, Richmond Hill, Queens County, New York [4] |
- Robert L Maby, Head, M, W, 38, M, age at first marriage 27, Hawaii, New York, Hawaii, Clerk, War Department
Lelia G Maby, Wife, F, W, 38, M, age at first marriage 27, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Registered Nurse, Hospital, Veteran, World War
Robert L Maby Jr, Son, M, W, 8, S, attending school, New York, Hawaii, Nebraska
|
| Census |
4 Apr 1940 |
9130 112th Street, Queens, Queens County, New York [5] |
- Robert Maby, Head, M, W, 47, M, completed 4 years high school, born in Hawaiian[sic], Clerk, Quartermaster, US Army
Lelia Maby, Wife, F, W, 50, completed 4 years high school, born in Omaha Neb
Robert Maby, Son, M, W, 18, S, attended school, completed 1 year college, born in New York
|
| WW2 Draft |
16 Feb 1942 |
9130 112th Street, Richmond Hill, Queens County, New York [2] |
- Robert Lincoln Maby Jr, 9130 112th St, Richmond Hill, Queens, N.Y., born 28 Aug 1921 in Richmond Hill, New York, registered for the draft. He attended the University of Illinois, Urbana. The person who would always know his address was his father, Major R L Maby, at the same address. He was White, 5' 10", 174 pounds, had blue eyes, black hair, and a light complexion.
|
| Note |
28 Sep 1944 |
Brooklyn, New York City, New York [6] |
- Lt. Col. Robert L. Maby, for 22 years with the Quartermaster Department at the Brooklyn Army Base, and for the last two years at the Jersey City Quartermaster Depot, has been appointed commanding officer of the GMC subdepot, Somerville, N. J.
Colonel Maby, who lives at 91-10 118th St., Richmond Hill, began at the Brooklyn Army Base as a civilian worker in the purchasing department of the Quartermaster Corps. Shortly before he left for the Jersey City post, he was commissioned a major and in May, 1942, was promoted to lieutenant colonel.
As a War Department civilian employe, Colonel Maby also served at Quartermaster depots in San Francisco, Manila, Baltimore and Hawaii. He was born in 1892 in the Hawaiian Islands. He studied electrical engineering and worked at it for one year in San Francisco. As a seaman, he traveled extensively across the Pacific.
A son, Lt. Robert Maby, is serving with the army air forces in England.
|
| Census |
14 Apr 1950 |
9110 118th Street, New York City, Queens County, New York [7] |
- Robert L Maby, Head, White, Male, 58, Married, born in Hawaii, Lt Colonel, US Army
Lelia Maby, Wife, White, Female, 61, Married, born in US
Robert L Maby Jr, Son, White, Male, 27, never married, born in US, unable to work
|
| Residence |
1955 |
4816 N Steanson Drive, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma [8] |
| Retired |
1989 |
Houston, Texas |
- Retirement permits Bob to follow the oil scene, to a degree. At first, he worked briefly for Exxon Production Research Company. Shortly thereafter, the Society of Petroleum Engineers designated him a Distinguished Lecturer, and, for a year, he traveled and lectured throughout the United States and Western Europe on various oil activities. Since then, he continues to teach and consult but mainly overseas. His most interesting long-term job involved the 1980’s conceptual planning for a thirty-million-dollar hands-on oil museum for the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In the short-term, he consulted with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the Martian Landing project, planned an exploratory program for China's western-most basin and worked with the United States Army Topographic Laboratory during preparations for the 1992 Gulf War.
In his career, he traversed the entire geologic column, and, in the process, developed a never ending fascination with the physics of flow through porous media. Water and wind led to an abiding geomorphological interest and from there to archaeology. Indeed, over the years he has visited all the major archaeological sites from Tunisia to Afghanistan. More to the point, however, Bob collected pre-Sumerian potsherds in eastern Saudi Arabia, and, throughout several years in the 1980s, collaborated with a Jesuit at Loyola in recapping these events.
After a number of years studying the philosophy of Carl Jung and, then, completing a four year curriculum designed and run by the School of Theology of the University of the South, Bob still manages to maintain a commitment to science in a very busy life.
|
| Anecdote |
Mar 2004 |
Houston, Texas [9] |
- After separating from the Eighth Air Force of World War II fame with one Distinguishing Flying Cross and four Air Medals, plus the usual assortment of service ribbons, Robert returned to college, married one of his students and, then, learned the nuts and bolts of the oil business in Oklahoma. It was in Saudi Arabia, however, where he worked and taught for nearly thirty years that marked his entrance into the international oil scene. While an expatriate, he juggled jobs from geology to petroleum engineering to geophysics and back again to geology for a broader Middle East perspective, and in the process gained two more languages for a total of eight.
Initially during his geological career, he examined the entire Arabian sedimentary rock sequence by traveling up-slope across the peninsula from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea Mountains. When the summer heat lessened, he drilled structure and stratigraphic holes for information (not oil) in the great southern desert, the Rub' al' Khali, as well as in northwestern Arabia. Unusual for a geologist, he became a drilling superintendent with the result that the complexity of recovered reservoir rocks sparked an interest in the petrophysics of carbonates and evaporates that remains with him still.
Soon he was in engineering full time: as a drilling engineer he worked offshore on well completions; as an oilfield production engineer he wrote the definitive company manual on bottom-hole testing; and, as a reservoir engineer he became the company remote-sensing log analyst, and had a little-known by-passed oil show tested that increased oil reserves by three-billion barrels, proved.
This success propelled him back into geology as head of exploitation where he codified oil-reserve calculations. Later, to better coordinate newly evolving technology, he transferred to geophysics where he supervised the integration of geologic, seismic, gravity and magnetic profiles into one all-inclusive tectonic peninsular grid for a better evaluation of earth history. Eventually, he did return to geology involving the entire Middle East.
Throughout all those years overseas, his main avocation was archaeology. As time permitted, he visited most of the Old World classical sites from Greece and Tunisia to Afghanistan. Soon, however, he found his own niche in the terra incognita of the eastern Arabian Peninsula. There, he helped pioneer finding and documenting ‘Ubaiyd pottery shards that he believes were left by a Pre-Sumerian non-literate fisher-people. In reconstructing the putative trail of these intruders from Mesopotamia, he mapped a geological stratum identifying an older but higher Persian/Arabian Gulf shoreline associated with their sites. After presenting his peninsular map to the London Institute of Archaeology at an invited lecture, the British Museum sponsored an expedition to Qatar and found an 'Ubaiyd site as predicted.
As soon as he retired, the Society of Petroleum Engineers awarded him a Distinguished Lectureship, and for a year he traveled throughout the United States and Western Europe. Afterwards, he began juggling again; this time between three main consulting positions; constructing a mathematical model of the world's largest oilfield, doing the conceptual planning for a 30-million dollar hands-on oil exhibit for Saudi Arabia, and teaching geology and production engineering overseas. In between these phased assignments, he assisted the National Aeronautics and Space Administration with the Martian Landing Program and the U.S. Army Topographic Laboratory with preparation for the Gulf War.
In addition to all of the above, Robert managed to squeeze in a four-year course in theology followed by a two-year course on the collected works of C. G. Jung. Now as all his theological, linguistic and scientific studies coalesce, a syzygy is developing that better defines who and where he is….a work in progress.
|
| Info |
- Judith and Ernest Maby, #15; Robert Lincoln "Bob" Maby, .
|
| Note |
- Bob Maby, began his professional career in the Oklahoma oilfields. In the early 1950's, he went to work in the Middle East for the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) and returned the United States in the early 1980's. In Saudi Arabia, Bob initially supervised structural and stratigraphic drilling in all concession areas. Later he transferred to engineering and became a petroleum engineer, working in all phases of drilling-engineering, production-engineering and reservoir engineering, both onshore and off. He wrote the definitive company manual on bottom-hole testing and, after becoming the official company log analyst, returned to geology as head of exploitation. Still later, he transferred to geophysics where he supervised the integration of geologic, seismic, gravity and magnetic profiles into one all-inclusive tectonic peninsular grid for a better evaluation of earth history. Eventually, he returned to a geology embracing the entire Middle East.
|
| Note |
- Maybee Society Member Number 216
|
| Death |
3 Feb 2009 |
Houston, Texas [11, 12] |
| Obituary |
8 Feb 2009 |
Houston, Texas [11] |
- Robert Lincoln Maby Jr., 87, international geologist, geophysicist, petroleum engineer and amateur archaeologist died peacefully at his Houston home on Tuesday, February 3, 2009 after a brief battle with cancer. The world lost a true gentleman and a scholar, not just for his historically important knowledge and understanding of the geology and development of the incredible Saudi oil production but for his in-depth understanding of the context and archeology of the region and the importance of the sites showing the movement of people out of Africa. Robert was born in New York City on August 28, 1921, the only child of Robert L. Maby and Lelia Grace Maby. He served in the US Army Air Force during WWII on B-17's during the European campaign, earning several decorations including the Distinguished Flying Cross. He earned a B.S. in Geology at the University of Wisconsin in 1947 and did post graduate work from 1947-1949. While at the university he met and later married the love of his life, Carolyn (Lyn) Lorene Wollschlaeger. Robert learned the "nuts and bolts" of the oil business while working for Mid-Continent Petroleum Corp. in Oklahoma from 1951-1954. He then went on to an illustrious career at the Arabian American Oil Company, (ARAMCO) from 1954-1982. Afterward he then became an International Consultant until his retirement in 2000. Robert was a complex and learned person speaking eight languages and remained fluent in Arabic which he learned while in the Middle East. His work included stints as a drilling superintendent, drilling engineer, geologist, petroleum engineer, geophysicist and teacher. His expertise led to the discovery of the Cretaceous Orbitolina Limestone reservoir containing probable reserves of eight billion barrels of oil, and writing a definitive company manual on bottom-hole testing among many other accomplishments. As soon as he retired from ARAMCO, the Society of Petroleum Engineers awarded him a Distinguished Lectureship, and, for a year he traveled and spoke throughout the United States and Western Europe. As a consultant, he worked on constructing a mathematical model of the world's largest oilfield, participating in the planning of an extensive hands-on oil exhibit/museum in Saudi Arabia, and consulting with NASA and the U.S. Army Topographic Laboratory. While expatriates, Robert and wife Lyn developed a great interest in and knowledge of archeology, visiting many Old World classical sites from Greece to Tunisia to Afghanistan and sites in the Middle East. His professional memberships included: Fellow, Geological Society of America; Fellow, Geological Society of London; Fellow, Royal Geographical Society; Fellow, Explorers Club; American Association of Petroleum Geologists; Houston Geological Society; Royal Society of Asia Affairs; International Association of Sedimentologists; Society of Petroleum Engineers; New York Academy of Science, and Archaeological Institute of America (Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Houston Society of AIA). Aside from geology and archeology, Robert `s interest and study included theology, mythology and music, especially opera, along with Middle Eastern crafts, Bedouin jewelry, and oriental rugs. He also studied the collected works of C.G. Jung. His vast book collections attest to his voracious reading and love of learning. Robert was an active member of Christ Church Cathedral in Houston. Robert was preceded in death by his parents and wife, Lyn. He left behind many stories and friendships. Special thanks to Laura Garza, Becky Lao, Carolyn Ross and many others for their loving friendship and care for Bob. A memorial service will be held at Christ Church Cathedral on Wednesday, February 11 at one o'clock in the afternoon with the Very Rev. Joe Reynolds officiating.
|
| Occupation |
- Bob's business card reads, " Geologist-Middle East. Certification and Registrtion: Am. Assoc. Petrol. geol. No. 814; State of California, No. 1546; State of N. Carolina, No. 420; Fellow: Geol. Soc. of America; Fellow: The Geological Soc. (London); Society of Petroleum Engineers; SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology)
|
| Reference Number |
216 |
| Burial |
Oak Grove Cemetery, La Crosse, La Crosse County, Wisconsin [13] |
- Maby; Carolyn; Dec 9, 1928 - Oct 26, 1988; Robert; Aug 28, 1921 - Feb 3, 2009
|
| Person ID |
I216 |
Maybee Society |
| Last Modified |
7 Apr 2024 |
1921 - 2009 (87 years)
