Bob Huettmann

Military Service

After graduating at Vance on October 25th, 1952, I had a brief stint at Miami Airbase, Florida to transition to C-119s as crews. From there our crew went to McClellan AFB, CA to get a C-119 and ferry it to Ashiya, Japan where we were to be stationed. I flew the Korean Airlift of men and supplies of all sorts. I also dropped paratroops several times. My tour of duty was to be one year but as the Korean War ended while I was there, my tour was extended to 15 months. In 1954 I had several short tours to Clark AFB in the Philippines to fly supplies to the French in Vietnam (called Indo-china back then) who finally lost their war at Dien Bien Phu.

At the end of my overseas tour I again ferried a C-119 back to Birmingham, AL and was assigned to Charleston AFB to continue flying C-119s. Most of this duty was dropping paratroops at Ft. Bragg although I still did some passenger and freight hauling.

In early 1955, I was transferred out of an operational squadron and became the OIC of the C-119 Flight Simulator. As the C-119s were to be transferred away from Charleston and I was separating from active duty, I was transferred to MATS and became a base-ops duty officer for several months until I left active duty in October, 1955.

Employment

Most of my working years was as a stock broker in Santa Cruz, CA. I retired early and moved to Pebble Beach, CA. Here I worked in real estate and became a real estate broker. Since this was not to my liking I went to the local community college to learn electronics. One subject was Basic computer programming in which I excelled and was requested to teach the course. I did so for four years.

Volunteer work

When the Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in 1984 I went to work two days a week as a volunteer in the sea otter department. I held two jobs: As an otter keeper of the otters on display and as a nurse and teacher to orphaned baby otters which we raised and released back to the wild. I did this for fifteen years.

At the same time I was a member of a marine mammal rescue outfit and started a harbor seal protection organization where I had 80 volunteers working for me each spring during the seal birthing period. I was also treasurer of the local chapter of the American Cetacean Society.

Personal

I had three years at Northwestern University before joining the Air Force. After pilot training I married Anne (was married for 11 years and had three daughters). Upon release from the Air Force I went to San Jose State College for my last year to get my degree in Business.

In 1965 I married Kay and added her son to my family. Our four children have given us six grandchildren.

My hobbies are raising tuberous begonias, photographing wildflowers for identification purposes, photographing sunsets, designing and building simple electronic gadgets, and I spend far too much time on my computer mostly working with photos.