SAN DIEGO — Amistar cofounder Stuart C. Baker passed away on July 8 at the age of 85.

Baker, called Stu by friends and colleagues, cofounded Amistar in 1971, which developed automated assembly equipment. He served as director and president and chairman of Amistar, which eventually went public.

Baker was an engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, businessman and family man. An accomplished musician, he was offered a scholarship to Juilliard School of Music but opted instead to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated with a bachelor's of science in electrical engineering. He later received a master's in electrical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Baker worked as a research assistant at MIT in the field of acoustics, in which he was responsible for the design and construction of miniature hot wire anemometer instrumentation systems for the measurement of particle velocity cross-correlation in turbulent fields.

His professional career began at Ramo-Wooldridge with the responsibilities for evaluation, systems engineering and technical direction of contractors responsible for the development of electronic range instrumentation dedicated to ICBM and IRBM flight test programs.

As Ramo-Wooldridge was becoming what is now TRW, Stuart moved to Space Technology Laboratories’ and was active in their satellite and space vehicle programs during the development of the Pioneer I, Pioneer II, Explorer VI, Pioneer V, Atlas / ABLE-4 and Atlas/ ABLE-5 payloads. He supervised the engineering group, which designed and built the STL physics experiments placed on these vehicles and was responsible for the integration of the equipment into these payloads.

Additional responsibility included electronic design and construction of Micrometeorite Data Conversion equipment and of the television system that secured the first picture of Earth taken from a satellite.

Flush from these technological successes and surrounded by many gifted engineers, Baker decided to make the entrepreneurial leap of starting his first business. Backed by Gordon Marshall, Marshall Laboratories incorporated in October 1960. As president and technical director of Marshall Laboratories, Baker directed the manufacturing operations and development of ultra-reliable electronic equipment for space and missile applications. Marshall Labs morphed into Marshall Data Systems, which manufactured “plug compatible” mass storage drive systems. This entrepreneurial spirit drove Baker to help found Amistar in 1971.

Baker is survived by his wife of 60 years, Nancy, daughter Kim, and sons Eric and Scott.

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