SPOTLIGHT ON BOB HART
Samuel Robert Hart Jr. (Bob) began his career with Alabama Power Company as a Junior Engineer in July 1949 one month after graduating from the University of Alabama with a BS in Electrical Engineering. He remained with the Southern Company System until his retirement in 1986 as the Vice President of Research and Environmental Affairs at Southern Company Services.
Bob was born in Birmingham in May 1927 and graduated from Ensley High School in the midst of World War II. After a stint in the US Army he returned to marry his high school sweetheart Corinne Donnelly in 1947. Bob held various positions within the Southern Company system such as Assistant to the President of Alabama Power (1963), Vice President of Engineering at APC (1967) and Vice President of Transmission and System Operations for APC in 1975. In June 1977 he moved over to SCS and became the Vice President of R&EA.
One of Bob and Corinne’s most memorable assignments during his 37 year career was in 1954 and 1955 when they lived and worked in Schenectady, New York and Bob completed the General Electric Power Engineering Course which was like a master’s degree for those in the power engineering field at that time. It was there that Bob and Corinne met other industry folks like Frank and Francis Stuart from Dallas, Texas. Frank had a long career with Dallas Power and Light and they remained friends throughout the years visiting one another until Frank’s death in 2013.
Outside of the Southern Company, Bob devoted many hours to community service and received the Vulcan Award from the Boy Scouts of American in 1966 for his outstanding work in Scouting and also received the Bomar Award in 1959 for his outstanding service to the Birmingham Area Jaycees. As anyone who is around Bob Hart for any length of time will learn, he loves the University of Alabama School of Engineering and is a huge fan of Alabama Football. From 1972 to 1975, Bob helped found and Chair the UA Capstone Engineering Society, a national organization for alumni and friends of the College of Engineering to provide industry guidance and fundraising for the College. In 1979 and in 2002, he was given the Outstanding Engineering Alumnus Award by the University of Alabama. In the past few years, Bob continues to show his support for the UA College of Engineering through a recently endowed Engineering scholarship.
Bob has two grown children Gary (Marcia) and Lisa Hart Reynolds (Preston) and three of the most wonderful grandchildren in the world. They are: Leigh Hart (30); Ashley Reynolds Nail (28) and Leslie Reynolds (25). All three are graduates of the University of Alabama. They all reside in the Birmingham area and are the delight of their grandparents. In 1967 Bob secured one of the Alabama Power “lease lots” on Lay Lake (back when the lake level was raised) and there the family constructed a modest lake house that served as the base for many hours of family fun over the years.
Upon retirement, Bob and Corinne traveled to Europe and took a number of cruises and today they have now “downsized” from their house in Vestavia and live in an apartment near Vestavia High School. They remain active in Shades Mountain Baptist Church and now await a second grandchild’s wedding as their oldest grandchild Leigh is to be married in June 2014.