Robert Yearington Grant died Jan. 19, 2003, in Everett.

He was born May 2, 1913, in Seattle to Charles Ernest and Amy Josephine Mahon Grant.

He attended Gatewood Elementary School and West Seattle High School before entering the University of Washington and earning a degree in geology. After leaving the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1946, his interest and experience in geology led to his assignment as chief of the mining and geology division in postwar Japan. Thereafter he had tours of duty in such assignments as Taiwan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, Dacca (Bangladesh) and Islamabad, Pakistan. He finally returned to Washington, D.C., with the Office of Population in the Agency for International Development.

Following his retirement in 1977, he served several tours as a consultant on population and family planning for the American Public Health Association in Egypt, Bangladesh, Thailand, Indonesia and Nepal. He contributed articles to professional journals and wrote several publications.

At the UW, he met Eleanor May Lewis of Tacoma, and they married in 1941. They established a home at Greenbank on Whidbey Island, a waterfront haven to which they returned after each tour of duty in exotic places. After Mr. Grant’s retirement they become suburbanites in Lake Forest Park, but their roots remain firmly embedded in Whidbey soil.

The couple joined the Seattle Audubon Society upon their return to the Seattle area, where they performed valued and necessary tasks that have helped the organization to set records for efficiency and accomplishment. They set up the Bob and Eleanor Grant Education Endowment to provide scholarships for low-income children to attend SAS’s Nature Camp.

Mr. Grant believed in the power of education to open doors and to develop professional abilities, especially in the natural sciences. In 1982 the SAS board chose the team of Bob and Eleanor Grant as Volunteer of the Year. Mr. Grant served as SAS president in 1985-86 and as director from the Western region 1987-89, when he was nominated to serve a three-year term on the board of directors of the National Audubon Society.

His wife of 62 years, Eleanor, and many friends and large extended family survive him. He will be missed dearly.

A memorial service will be held at 6:30 p.m. Monday at the Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St., Seattle.

Memorials may be made to the Bob & Eleanor Grant Education Endowment at Seattle Audubon, 8050 35th Ave. N.E., Seattle, WA 98115.