Robert F. (Bob) Yonash | |
---|---|
Born |
Wadena, Minnesota |
February 7, 1919
Died | April 19, 1997 Sebastopol, California |
(aged 78)
Occupation | Aircraft engineer, entrepreneur |
Robert F. (Bob) Yonash (February 7, 1919 – April 19, 1997) was an engineer in the early days of the aircraft industry. He was a member of the start-up management team for the Texas Engineering & Manufacturing Company (TEMCO), which eventually became the "T" in the conglomerate Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV). He was the co-founder, with Harold Silver, of the Intercontinental Manufacturing Company (IMCO), which is currently owned by General Dynamics.
Yonash made an important contribution to the aircraft industry after World War II by finding ways to ease the transition from wartime production to a consumer-based economy, as well as from an aircraft industry to the military-industrial complex that characterized the Cold War.
Following his career in the aircraft industry, Yonash was an entrepreneur in Sonoma County, California for nearly forty years.
Bob Yonash was the firstborn child and only son of Frank Yonash and Esther Mary Jacobsen. At the time of his birth on February 7, 1919, his parents resided on a homestead near Plevna, Montana. His mother went to her mother’s home in Wadena, Minnesota for his birth.
Yonash's father immigrated from Bohemia, which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, arriving at Ellis Island on September 5, 1908. His mother descended from immigrants of Denmark and Luxembourg, who settled in Iowa and later moved to Wadena.
In 1927, the Yonash family moved to the Los Angeles, California area where they managed an apartment house for several years before settling on a farm in Bellflower, California.