Robert Henderson Obituary

Robert Walter Henderson III, an avid traveler and engaging storyteller, died on Saturday, May 7, 2022. He was 74.
Born in Richmond, California to Robert Walter Jr. and Freda Lorene (Stone) Henderson, Robert developed his love for traveling at a young age. To visit extended family in Illinois as a child, he would ride cross-country in his parents' car on a yearly basis.
Later in life, his work as a mechanical and nuclear engineer brought him to places all around the world. He attended University of California, Berkeley for a semester but transferred to Contra Costa College, where he graduated with his A.A. in 1967, to avoid getting drafted into the military. He graduated from San Francisco State University in 1969 with his B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and later worked for Bechtel as the corporate chief nuclear engineer and later the vice president of the projects and operations in Asia for 27 years. While abroad, he met his wife Muriel, with whom he had his first and only child, Chelsea.
Robert dedicated his life and his work to his family. While working for Nukem Technologies as the project director for the Ignalina Decommissioning EPC project from 2006 to 2009 and the director of sales for Western Europe and Asia from 2009 to 2011, he would travel back and forth from Lithuania and Germany, respectively, to Tennessee on a biweekly basis to spend time with his family. In 2009, he became the CEO of A4C LLC – his own consulting company that he named "All for Chelsea" since all his work was done for the betterment of his daughter's life.
In addition to his work at these companies, Robert was a partner at EC Harris from 2011 to 2012, and he consulted for companies like Hitachi, Korea Electric, Samsung, Logica, RWE, Nuclear Engineering Services, HK Engineered Investments, and PJD Power Industry Group. With these years of traveling, Robert achieved the status of Global Services for life with United Airlines for flying over 4 million miles with them alone. These business opportunities also gave him a wealth of entertaining stories that he would share with friends and family for years to come.
Even when he was diagnosed with Stage 2 bladder cancer in October 2021, Robert continued to see the glass half-full. He was able to light up any room he was in with his stories, humor, and exceptional wit. At his visits to Thompson Cancer Survival Center as well as Parkwest Medical Center, he would crack jokes with his nurses, doctors, and fellow patients and reference his time as a medic for the U.S. Army Reserves during the Vietnam War. He was a joy to be around, and one would never guess that he was a cancer patient.
As he neared his final days, Robert's thoughts were still on visiting his daughter while she was studying abroad in London and his future travels back to the Philippines to see his numerous nephews and nieces. Once a world traveler, always a world traveler.
Robert is survived by his loving wife Muriel, daughter Chelsea, and sister Janat Compton.
Funeral service will take place on Saturday, May 28 from 5-7 pm at Click Funeral Home in Farragut.