Obituary: Robert Charles Cook, Former Software Engineer in Computer Sciences

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Robert Charles Cook, 57, a former managing software engineer in computer sciences, died Nov. 18.

Born in Springfield, Nov. 7, 1961, he spent most of his childhood and teenage years in Amherst, where he grew up with one sister and eight brothers.

He graduated from Amherst Regional High School in 1979 and went on to earn his Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering from UMass Amherst in 1983.

While in school, he joined the Amherst Fire Department and served the community as a captain of the call force as well as an EMT for more than 18 years.

He had an industrious career as a software engineer, beginning at the Center for Intelligent Information Retrieval at the university in 1986. He left as a managing software engineer in 1997. He co-founded a company that which would later play a large part in developing the FBI’s counter-terrorism system.

He was a children’s ski instructor at Mt. Snow, Vermont.

Most recently he lived in Reston, Virginia, where he continued his work as a software engineer.

He is survived by his beloved children Chris (Erika), Scott, and Brie; his former wife, Lynn Cook; his mother, Beverly Cook; and his nine siblings, Kathleen, Ken, Tom, Gary, Jim, Steve, Joe, Dan, and John.

Memorial donations may be made to Adaptive Sports at Mt. Snow, 39 Mt. Snow Road, Mt. Snow, VT 05356, msadaptive.org