Bob Montelione
Larry Wolfe
One of eight kids, Bob Montelione grew up in East New York, a section of Brooklyn, in what he describes as a beautiful neighborhood that turned bad. He describes running home from school every day negotiating possible muggings, or worse. And he’s still running, and fast, as is evidenced by his always being among our league leaders in inside-the-park homers!
After graduating from Bishop Loughlin Memorial High School, Bob’s family moved to Massapequa on Long Island. Bob attended the State University of New York at Farmingdale and later earned a BS in business management from New York University. Prior to his college days, Bob had joined the American Federation of Musicians Union at age 18 and performed in an eight-piece cover band in Queens for several years, going to classes during the day and performing at night.
Bob’s business career began in the late ‘60s in the computer field as a back office accounting programmer. In the ‘70s, he started in the retail fuel business and later informally partnered with an IBM engineer to program the first computer used to automate nursing stations addressing pharmacy and laboratory requests. He also developed software for managing business operations for retail electronic appliance stores.
From the ‘80s onward, Bob enjoyed a long relationship with IBM as a business partner. He did, however, quit the computer business for a short time to follow his other love, music. He moved to Vegas and was a bass player in a band for several months before deciding to go back to the “real world” of computer programming. His plan was to develop fully integrated business systems. Among his most interesting computer projects were systematizing souvenir stand cash registers for major sports venues and developing computer systems in multiple industries, including healthcare, commercial real estate, restaurants, and wholesale drug distribution. He later became an expert in data security and disaster/recovery systems for IBM computers. Much of the software he developed is still in use at several businesses today and likely will be for years to come.
Bob credits his business success to life tools learned in his youth from his parents, family, and friends but says that the stabilizing and loving force later on provided by his wife Jackie was the real key. Bob and Jackie have a daughter, Tiffani, son-in-law, Sean, and two grandkids who live in Chandler.
Jackie and Bob have been Sun Lakes snowbirds since 2017 when Bob retired. He began playing in our softball league then as well. In the summers he plays back home in a Long Island Senior Softball League.
In addition to softball, Bob has a keen interest in American sports cars and recently purchased a mechanically challenged 2004 Mustang, which he’s slowly rebuilding into something more. Bob and Jackie enjoy visiting gardens and arboretums, musical theatre, and walking on the beach, which they do nearly every night in the summers. But it’s spending time with the grandkids that is their special joy.