"Original" leaves Hurlburt Field

  • Published
  • By Jamie Haig
  • 1st SOW Public Affairs
HURLBURT FIELD, Fla. --  Whether you're walking down the hall at the wing headquarters building, watching a Hurlburt Field float in a parade, or looking at the decals on one of the 1st Special Operations Wing's aircraft -- traces of a true "original" can be seen everywhere.

Robert "Bob" Duguid, 1st Special Operations Communications Squadron, is retiring Dec. 31 after 48 years of working in the visual information field - of which 22 of those years were spent at Hurlburt Field. He's produced everything from magnetic signs, to hand-drawn original pencil sketches and wooden signs.

He joined the Air Force in 1958 and began his career in graphics hand making illustrations of maps, brochures and briefing slides.

Using large, white china lettering, he would place each letter on plexiglas sheets that were laid on crinkled blue velvet. After setting the letters - a process which took two to three hours -- he would position a camera above his work and take several photographs with 35 mm film. He then would turn the film over to the photo lab for printing.

"There was nothing worse than getting a phone call from the photo lab saying they lost your film," said Mr. Duguid.

Ever since he was a child growing up in Queens Village, Long Island, N.Y., he loved to draw. With several uncles who were artists, he was surrounded by the world of creation.

"It drove my father nuts," Mr. Duguid said.

After four years in the Air Force, he left the military graphics world for a civilian job at Syracuse University Research Corporation, where he did art work, drafting, and designed and printed circuit boards.

In 1967, he started his Department of Defense career at Hancock Field, Syracuse, N.Y. where he ran the photo lab, graphics shop and film library for 10 years.

"That was an interesting job," Mr. Duguid said. "It was an Air Defense Command/North American Air Defense Command facility, which during the 60s, was a busy place."

Howard Air Force Base, Panama, became the Duguid family's home for the next seven years. He and his wife Diane raised their three children, Robbie, Brian and Karen, on the Air Force base that played the central role in U.S. military operations in Latin America.

"I ran the graphics shop at Howard and had two Panamanian civilian employees working for me," Mr. Duguid said. "It was a beautiful base and a beautiful country."

He was called upon to create graphics for the Canal Treaty, Nicaragua Problem, and the Jonestown Massacre.

The next and last stop for the master of graphics was Hurlburt Field where he ran two graphics shops, one at the Special Operations School, and base graphics.

"I started here when it was the first 1st SOW when the aerospace audiovisual squadron was a tenant unit on the base," he said. "Shortly thereafter, Gen. Merrill McPeak broke apart AAVS and it then fell under the communications squadron."

Mr. Duguid's memories of Hurlburt Field over the past 22 years are ones of camaraderie, of a group that worked hard and played hard and enjoyed each other's company.

"When you're a creative person, you manage creative people differently," Mr. Duguid said. "I started out the same way they did so I don't tell them 'you can't do this' - I tell them 'why don't you try it this way and see how it works'," he said.

"I'm going to miss these kids."

Mr. Duguid is one of the last "originals" in the Air Force graphics community.