Robert H. Price, mechanical engineer
Robert H. “Rocky” Price, a retired mechanical engineer who managed major commercial projects, died Feb. 21 of complications from a stroke at The Maples of Towson. He was 92.
The son of Thomas Howard Price, a cattleman, businessman and a founder of Brooks-Price Buick, and Beulah Haile Price, a homemaker, Robert Haile Price was born in Baltimore and raised on his family’s farm in Phoenix, Baltimore County.
Mr. Price got the nickname “Rocky” from his mother, who said when he was a toddler that he recovered from the inevitable bumps, falls and bruises so quickly that he “must be made of rock,” and the name remained with him for the rest of his life, family members said.
He attended Sparks High School and graduated in 1941 from Mercersburg Academy in Mercersburg, Pa. He entered Princeton University in 1942, and after a year, transferred to an accelerated naval officer training program at Cornell University.
After graduating from Cornell in 1945 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, he entered the Navy and served two years in the South Pacific.
He began his career working as a field engineer and later a plant supervisor for the Shell Oil Co., and in 1960, joined Baltimorebased Fair Lanes Inc. A year later, the bowling manufacturer named him director of engineering for its operations in Great Britain.
Mr. Price returned to Maryland in 1962, when he became a consulting engineer working on environmental projects to eliminate pollution in the Chesapeake Bay and designing new wastewater treatment plants in North East and Rock Hall.
In 1978, he joined BTR Realty Inc., a Baltimore commercial and industrial development company, where he was vice president of engineering and construction.
Among his many major projects was supervising the construction of Harford Mall in Bel Air. He retired in 1989.
Mr. Price designed his home on Glenellen Court in Towson, where he and his wife lived from 1955 to 2002, when they moved to Glen Meadows Retirement Community in Glen Arm. Since 2012, he had lived at The Maples.
His wife of 67 years, the former Mary Louise “Wesi” Baldwin, his high school sweetheart, died in 2013.
In addition to being a world traveler and spending summers in Oxford, Talbot County, he enjoyed boating, fishing and waterfowl hunting.
He and his wife were founding members of the Maryland Presbyterian Church, 1105 Providence Road, Towson, where a memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. April 7.
Mr. Price is survived by a son, Robert “Chip” Price of Beverly Farms, Mass.; two daughters, Patricia Ross of Baltimore and Barbara Percival of Washington; two brothers, Richard Price of Phoenix, Baltimore County, and Howard Price of Kissimmee, Fla.; four sisters, Missy Yates of Towson, Marilyn Willis of Lake City, Iowa, Sandra Willis of Eugene, Ore., and Rosemary Hundal of Vancouver, Canada; seven grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.