A Prototype for a Lasting Partnership

Caltech Associates Robert "Bob" and Karen Loschke have deepened their connection with the Institute through a Legacy Circle gift.

If it were not for an interest in keeping a library card, Bob and Karen Loschke may not have joined the Caltech Associates a quarter century ago, nor helped celebrate the organization's centennial this year by becoming members of the Associates 100 Legacy Circle. The philanthropic initiative is inspired by the Associates founders' original contributions to the Institute, encouraging a new generation of leaders to help secure Caltech's future.

In the 1990s Bob was a Lockheed Technical Fellow doing research for the Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. His position included Caltech campus library privileges and he frequently visited the Institute's Sherman Fairchild Library. "I would walk down the aisles and see these wonderful books, and think that looks interesting," he recalls. "When I retire, I'll have time to read."

When he finally decided to retire after nearly four decades with the aerospace company, he was chagrined to find that he would lose his Caltech library card. He was greatly relieved when he found that he could keep his library card if he joined the Caltech Associates and finally have access to all of the books he had seen in his previous visits.

A native of Oklahoma, Bob's interest in airplanes was sparked at an early age and would lead him to California, where he would find both his longstanding career as well as his future wife.

Hooked on Flying

It was the spring of 1942, just months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when Bob's mother heard about an airplane that had landed near their little town of Okarche, Oklahoma. He recalls his mother taking him out to an empty field where an Army trainer had landed and the two pilots were talking to a small crowd. Bob can't remember what the two pilots said, but it didn't matter as much as what they had brought to his attention.

"This was a brand new AT-6 trainer," he says of the aircraft. "I can still remember it just like it was yesterday. It was shiny, with fresh paint. After 30 minutes or so, they thanked everybody for coming, got into the airplane, and flew away. I was hooked. Some day, somehow, I was going to get involved with airplanes and flying."

True to his word, Bob obtained his Private Pilot License (PPL) and then earned a degree in aeronautical engineering and a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Oklahoma in 1961. He moved to Southern California to work at Lockheed and subsequently earned his master's degree in control systems engineering from UCLA in 1967.

A Fateful Ride

It was a fellow Lockheed colleague who would make the fortuitous introduction between Bob and Karen. A fifth-generation Californian, Karen was raised in Glendale and would go on to teach in the Glendale Unified School District for almost four decades. It was while she was still a new teacher in the classroom that she first met Bob at a local church group event.

"My girlfriend drove her car with several other of us girls to a beach party," says Karen. "As we drove up, I was looking out of the car window. I saw Bob throwing a football, and I said, 'Who's that?'" Bob would continue to attend the group's Friday night activities, eventually being asked by the friend from Lockheed to give Karen a ride to a volleyball game. Bob said yes, and they were married by 1964.

Still living in Glendale, Bob and Karen have made the most of their proximity to Caltech and their membership in the Associates. Over the years, they've attended more than 20 Watson Lectures, participated in two JPL tours, and travelled to Amsterdam with the Associates in 2019 and to Bend, Oregon, in 2024 to view the eclipse.

In 2025, they deepened their partnership with the Institute by joining the Associates 100 Legacy Circle. In the spirit of the benefactors who formed the organization a century ago, Legacy Circle members have committed $150,000—approximating the purchasing power of the founder's gifts in 1926. "One hundred years ago, these individuals had enough foresight to start this organization," says Bob. "And now we're coming along, and we have a good example to follow. We decided to make this donation so that maybe in 100 years from now, somebody else will do the same."

Bringing in Real-World Knowledge

Prior to joining the Associates and before his retirement, Bob served as a guest lecturer at the Institute as part of a team of Lockheed senior engineers presenting graduate-level case studies on aircraft design including the Lockheed S3A Viking, a Navy Carrier-based Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft, and the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.

Bob and the other Lockheed engineers provided Caltech graduate students with an insider's look at how the aircraft were developed, addressing topics such as aerodynamics, stability and control, structure, and propulsion. One of the most popular airplanes he touched on was the reconnaissance aircraft SR-71 Blackbird. According to Bob, it was an eye-opener for students. "What surprised people the most was the details of the propulsion system. You always think of the jet engine as providing thrust but with the SR-71 at high speed cruise conditions the engine is just an air pump. The inlet is supplying most of the thrust."

Looking back at his career, including working at Lockheed's legendary Skunk Works for 24 years, Bob considers the most interesting chapter was the period from 1975 to 1985 that he spent designing, developing, and testing the Fly-By-Wire Flight Control Systems for the world's first two stealth aircraft, the Have Blue Stealth technology demonstrator and the F-117A Nighthawk.

"The Fly-By-Wire technology was crucial to the development of these aircraft because the aerodynamic instabilities and the various cross axis couplings could not be handled with previously developed control systems," says Bob. "I often had to be away from home for weeks at a time at remote test sites and I was not allowed to tell Karen what I was doing. It wasn't until 1991 that I could tell her what the Skunk Works team had accomplished when the USAF pilots flying the F-117A demonstrated that stealth was real."

The importance of sharing real-world results also inspired the Loschkes to support the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships (SURF) program. For more than a decade they have funded fellowships each year for this 10-week research experience that gives students a taste of what the real world is like. "It's not all just book learning," says Bob. "You're going to have to get out into the world. You're going to have make applications for grants, and you're going to have to be able to convince people that what you're proposing is worthwhile."

For the Loschkes, the Institute has proven itself a worthwhile partner. When their names are added along with other Legacy Circle members to a donor wall adjacent to Dabney Hall this spring, Bob and Karen will serve as inspiration to the next generation of Associates. What's more, the wall will be adjacent to Bob's beloved Sherman Fairchild Library.