Butte artist, building pioneer dies

By Roberta Forsell Stauffer - 01/16/2008

He was a Butte original through and through — equal parts artist and building technologist, lifelong motorhead and ambassador to the off-beat side of the Mining City.

And to every task, Robert J. “OXO” Corbett applied his trademark sense of quality mixed with playfulness, from his signature “Shiniest Oldsmobile on Earth” to the design and construction of highly energy-efficient homes.

Corbett, 61, died unexpectedly early Tuesday at his girlfriend’s house in Uptown Butte. Stunned friends say he had suffered from pneumonia over the past few weeks, and an apparent respiratory failure led to cardiac arrest.

His favorite saying was, “This is not a dress rehearsal for your life,” and Corbett showed through example how to make the most of this one go-around, all the while looking to improve things along the way.

“OXO was the most good-natured, good-hearted, well-intentioned person I ever met — no question about it,” said Mark Staples, who grew up in Butte and is a lawyer in Helena. “He was an absolute font of creativity and fun.” Corbett was a few years ahead of Staples in the Catholic school system, but he noticed as far back as grade school just how smart was this friend of his older brother’s.

“The man was a genius,” Staples said. “You wouldn’t know it by how he comported himself from day to day — he was a jolly good fellow — but he was a bona fide genius.” Professionally, Corbett is perhaps best known as one of the fathers of super-insulated building technology that calls for a highly insulated building shell plus a mechanical ventilation system to circulate air.

“The technology was developed at the University of Illinois, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and Butte,” said Dan Hagan, an energy engineer for the state of New Mexico.

Hagan worked with Corbett and Barbara Miller, starting in the late 1970s at the National Center for Appropriate Technology in Butte. He said the pair has done more than anyone else in the country to spread this energy-saving technology.

“What he and Barb did was take it to the streets,” Hagan said. “They’ve been applying that stuff and developing it at the practical level, especially in terms of low-income housing, better than anybody. It’s just unbelievable.” Corbett’s first building plans came out in 1980, long before the green building buzz.

“Those plans have been built all over the world,” Miller said, and called Tuesday “the worst day of her life.” Miller and Corbett worked together since 1982, first at NCAT, and then later as co-founders of the National Affordable Housing Network. Their many projects include Habitat for Humanity houses throughout Southwest Montana and numerous energy-efficient houses in Central Butte and on the Hill.

“It was just such a pleasure to deal with him every day,” said Miller, who added that although her longtime partner is “not replaceable,” their work will continue. “I’ll dedicate the rest of the time I have left to tie it up the way we were going to.” Corbett graduated with honors from Montana State University-Bozeman with a degree in architecture — and designed a Maui resort and Evel Knievel’s Butte home — but he considered himself an artist, first and foremost.

He’s the donated talent behind all the annual Evel Knievel Days posters and pins, and he pushed the boundaries of computer technology to create numerous other pieces, many of which are displayed at www.artbyoxo.com.

“He was a huge part of what went on at Knievel Days,” said festival organizer Bill Rundle. “He was like my right hand.” But as much help as he was, Rundle stressed he’ll miss Corbett the friend most of all. “We lost a big part of Butte here I’ll tell you.” Butte’s Roy Morris remembers Corbett as the older neighborhood kid with a pinball machine in his garage and “all the cool stuff.” Later, they remained friends through a mutual interest in art. “He’s a guy that touched a lot of lives; he was part of the fabric of this community,” Morris said. “He was really humble and just a nice guy. I never heard anybody have a bad word to say about him.” Butte native Cary Gubler, a professional artist who works as art director for KULR-TV in Billings, called Corbett the “primary art mentor” in his life and said the man “was art” in so many ways, from the Clark mill on Timber Butte, which he renovated into his home, to the “Mirrormobile,” he rigged with a bubble-blowing machine for the last Evel Days parade.

“He emitted creativity in every aspect of his life,” Gubler said, a thought echoed by Staples, who asked, “Who else would have bowling ball figurines outside of his home which was in a foundry and yet none of it was anything less than brilliant — mechanistically and artistically?” Corbett also served as Butte’s planning director for a brief period during the mid-1970s and had worked two years as deputy director for Butte Forward, a private group that unsuccessfully tried to relocate the central business district to the Flat.

Current county planning director and state legislator Jon Sesso said Corbett was one of the first Butte people he met when he started working at NCAT in the late 1970s.

“My first friend turned out to be my best friend,” Sesso said. “I don’t think that there’s been any other person that I’ve looked up to and sought out for advice and input more than Bob. I just thought the world of him, and his commitment to our community was just beyond reproach. I’m going to miss him like a brother.” Staples summed up the gist of comments made by nearly everyone interviewed: “It would make your year to run into him. He was bigger than life in a lot of ways and that spirit, that reservoir of talent, that absolute whimsy, will be irreplaceable.

“This is a very deep loss,” he continued. “It’s as big a loss to the community of Butte as we’ve experienced in this season of major losses.” Funeral services for Corbett will be Tuesday at 10 a.m. at St. John’s Catholic Church. Visitation is at the church Monday from 5 to 7 p.m., followed by a vigil at 7 p.m. Memorial donations are preferred to Habitat for Humanity of Southwest Montana, Box 632, Butte, MT 59703.

For his obituary, please turn to Page A5.

Roberta Forsell Stauffer is The Standard’s editorial page editor and may be reached at roberta.stauffer@lee.net.