Robert Webster (Bob) Stone of Edgartown died May 5. He was 87.

He was born on Sept. 22, 1934, in Roanoke, Va., the youngest son of school teachers Webster Thompson Stone and Edna Noell Stone. He graduated from Roanoke’s Jefferson Senior High School in 1952 and from the University of Virginia in 1956 with a degree in mechanical engineering. At the University of Virginia, he was a member of the Alpha Tau Omega social fraternity.

Early in life he developed an engineer’s passion for flight. His first job after college was with the Glenn L. Martin Aircraft Company in Baltimore, Md. America’s space program at Cape Canaveral Florida next attracted his skills and he was extremely proud of his service there with the top scientists and engineers engaged in the Vanguard program.

Popular and outgoing by nature, he had a unique ability to communicate intricate knowledge either verbally or in writing. This talent led to a position with Aerojet General in Los Angeles, Calif. and eventually to his work for Aerojet as a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. His next employment brought him to the Boston area in 1968; for 10 years he was a highly successful director of professional photographic and technical products for the Polaroid Corporation. He later served as advisor and president of the Dacus Corporation, a dry foods packaging company in Tupelo, Miss.

During his years with Polaroid, Bob and his first wife, Alice Freeman Sharp of Louisville, Miss., and lived in Hingham. After her death in 1992, he remained a resident there until 1995 when he remarried to Elizabeth (Bess) Smith and moved to Martha’s Vineyard. The rest of his life was spent as an active retiree traveling widely with Bess, flying gliders out of Katama Airport, singing in the Federated Church choir and Island Community Chorus, reading voraciously and entertaining friends (including complete strangers) with an endless supply of questions and stories always garnered from firsthand experience.

His parents predeceased him as did his brother Jathan Noell Stone. He is survived by his wife of 27 years Elizabeth (Bess) Smith Stone, his daughter Sue Noell Stone, son in law Christopher V. Thayer, grandchildren William McFadden Thayer and Alice Stone Thayer of Albuquerque, N.M. and sister in law Rita Morgan Stone.

A memorial service is planned for sometime in June.

Memorial donations can be made to a charity of choice.