Robert Simpson Otto

Robert Simpson Otto

It is with great sorrow that the Otto Family met the passing of our husband/father/grandfather on Christmas day. Robert Simpson Otto was born December 4, 1946, and passed at home on December 25, 2022. He was born in Trenton, New Jersey to George Edward Otto and Ella Florence Ross Otto, the fourth child of five. His parents and older brothers Ralph Newlin and Richard George precede him in death. Surviving are his sister, Olivia, and brother, Jonathon. 

Rob’s education began along the shores of Neshaminy Creek in Newtown, Pennsylvania, where he fished and learned from the locals the hows, the wheres, the whens, the whys of catching dinner. His more formal education began at Newtown Friends School (elementary) and George School (middle and high) graduating in 1964 followed by The Pennsylvania State University at State College, Pennsylvania. He majored in Forestry, as his father had done in the 1920s, but soon changed direction toward Zoology and Fisheries. After graduating from Penn State in 1968 he entered graduate school at the University of Maine, Orono, where he earned his Masters and PhD degrees and was already employed by NOAA’s, National Marine Fisheries Service in Washington, DC. An internship brought him to Kodiak where one fine crisp February morning, he looked around in all directions and decided this looked a lot like “home.” A year later with wife and 1-year-old son in tow, we were packed and headed West. Visiting family and friends along the way, National Parks, The AI Can, the ferry brought us to Kodiak harbor on 7-7-77! We were “home!”