Longtime Pacific Palisades resident Robert S. Prentice passed away on August 9 after a massive heart attack. He was 74. Prentice was born June 17, 1937 in Erie, Pennsylvania. After high school, at the age of 17, he joined the Marines and was stationed in Okinawa, where he learned to speak Japanese. After serving his country, he studied computer science at the Northrop Institute of Technology. Bob worked at IBM for 30 years, beginning in 1963. He started as a data processor and later became a systems programmer. He received many awards for his outstanding per’formance in creating new systems that enhanced productivity at IBM. During this time, he traveled to London, Amsterdam and Japan. He married his wife, Beatrice, on March 2, 1973. After retiring from IBM, Bob continued to consult for the company for many years, and then moved on to consulting for other firms, traveling across the country and to Australia. His final job was for the FBI as an information technologist. Bob was responsible for maintaining hun’dreds of agents’ laptops. He was val’ued as a team player and his work ethic was admired by his supervisors. Toward the end of his tenure at the FBI, he developed congestive heart failure, which finally forced him to retire for a second time. Bob was an avid reader of thrill’ers, mysteries and science. He moved to Pacific Palisades in the 1980s from West Los Angeles. His wife, Bea, was director of the Early Childhood Center of Kehillat Israel for 20 years. She survives Bob, along with his stepsons William and Marc Seligman and his grandchildren Marisa and Evan, who miss their ‘Papa Bob.’
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