Lt. Col. Baldwin Troutman

Lt. Col Baldwin L. Troutman, Jr. USAF retired, father, grandfather, husband and uncle, passed away peacefully Friday night, 29 May. He was 91 years old. Baldwin grew up on a plantation near the Okefenoke Swamp in southeast Georgia. He was hunting food for the family there from the age of 12, and said that his mother would cook anything he shot, although she never found a way to make alligator taste good. During his time in high school in Albany, Georgia, in the time of the Great Depression, Baldwin worked for a coal and ice company. After high school he was a salesman/driver for Dr. Pepper. He enlisted in the Army (later the Army Air Force) in 1941 and met his wife, Favorita, in Louisiana during training. He rose through the ranks from private to lieutenant in two years, and spent most of the war in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil as a meteorologist. His first son, David was there. After the war he was sent to the University of Michigan where he got his master’s degree in physics and became father to his second son, Mark. After years in the Air Force working mainly with nuclear weapons he retired as a Lt. Colonel and joined Mitre Corporation. In this period he met his second wife Marianne and later adopted her son, Charles. At Mitre Baldwin was the director of an enormous project building a worldwide telecoms system for the US military, the biggest project of its kind in history at that time. Later he became director of Mitre training college. In this period he also became a Mason and advanced to Grand Master. And he was part of the first delegation of American scientist to visit China. He was a life out of the American Dream. After a career that went from plowing behind a mule and hunting alligators to satellite based telecoms, nuclear weapons and a guest appearance in international diplomacy, he retire to Newnan, Georgia in 1985. There he devoted himself to building his dream home and to good works, working with Marianne for many years in different capacities for the Newnan Hospital volunteers. He referred to himself in that period as one of the “pink ladies”. Baldwin was mentally very active until the end. Although nearly blind, he used the internet daily and kept up on the lasts developments in the world, including quantum physics and medicine, by listening to books send him on tape from the Library of Congress. Baldwin was s Southern gentleman of the old school, a soldier, a scholar and a scientist. He will be remembered by all who met him. He will be missed. He is predeceased by his son Mark, his second wife, Marianne Troutman, and his brothers Thomas and Glenn Troutman. He is survived by his sons David and Charles Troutman, five grandchildren and his first wife Favorita Troutman. He will be buried at Arlington on September 2. A memorial service will be held at the McKoon Funeral Home in Newnan, Georgia at 5 PM on Friday, June 5. Visitation between 3-5pm. Friends and acquaintances are invited to attend. Don’t send flowers. Give something to someone who needs help instead, as Baldwin did for so many years.

Lt. Col. Baldwin Troutman

October 29, 1917 - May 29, 2009