Robert W. Cornelli ’58 died on June 14, 2024, in West Harwich, Massachusetts.

Robert W. Cornelli ’58

(The following was provided by the Bartlett Funeral Home on June 14, 2024:)

Robert (Bob) William Cornelli passed away peacefully at home on June 14, 2024, surrounded by family. He was born August 28, 1937, in Edgware, London, after his parents, Wilhelm and Stefanie Cornelli, fled Nazi Germany in 1936. When the war broke out, he was sent, at age three, to live with his grandmother in New York until he could safely return to London in 1945. Eventually he and his parents immigrated to America in 1948, settling in Long Island, New York, and later Exeter, New Hampshire.

He inherited a deep appreciation for the importance of education from his parents, graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1954, and then earning his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Bowdoin College in 1958. Bob loved being an active Bowdoin alum and becoming a Bowdoin parent forty years after his own matriculation. Following his graduation, he entered the nascent computing industry by joining the MITRE Corporation. There, he worked on the SAGE Project, the nation’s first air defense program. A “programmer’s programmer,” he then led the design of information management systems and program language development, including creating the operating system for the IBM 7030, the first ‘super computer.’ He also built a highly confidential system to track Vietnamese movements during the Vietnam war. In 1969, he moved to CSI (later TTI), a subsidiary of Citicorp, in order to design cashless banking systems. He continued this work at Advantage Systems (later ADP), developing innovative cash management systems until his retirement in 2006. The methodology and systems he pioneered are still in use today.

In 1955, Bob narrowly survived polio and was told he would never walk again. After two years of intensive physical therapy, he not only learned to walk but he went on to teach himself to play tennis and to ski. In fact, Bob met his beautiful wife, Madeline A. Cornelli, on a company ski trip. They married in 1974 and raised two daughters in Newton, MA, where they lived for over forty years. He continued to play tennis into his late 70s and passed on his love of skiing to his girls. He was passionate about travel, flying around the world with his mother to explore new cultures and to visit relatives who had scattered from Australia to South America after the war. Over the course of his life, he was an avid collector of bus numbers, stamps, science fiction novels, and photos, and he loved reading, puzzles, and crosswords.

Accompanied by his family, Bob loved summer trips to Nantucket, relaxing at the cabin in Denmark, Maine, and in more recent years, living full-time on Cape Cod, in West Harwich, within close proximity to the beach, lobster rolls, and clam chowder.

Bob faced adversity in his early years and more recently as he battled illness with a quiet but steely determination. He will be forever missed for his gentle presence, his incredible intellect, and his open-mindedness. His friends and family will remember the way he listened so attentively and fully enjoyed their company. His indelible and unique sense of humor carried him and those around him through harder times even, and perhaps most of all, in his final days.

Bob is survived by his loving and devoted wife of fifty years, Madeline, and their children, Rebecca Sanderson (Richard Sanderson) of Winnetka, IL, and Sabrina Cornelli (Luke Williams) of Augusta, ME. He is also survived by his beloved grandchildren, Zoe, Theo, and Zara Sanderson, and Brynn Williams.