In Memoriam : Robert Blattler
Robert Alfred Blattler - age: 45
(October 19, 1978 to April 28, 2024 ) Resident of Exeter, California Visitation Information: Services will be held on October 19, 2024 at the Memorial Building at 324 N Kaweah Ave, Exeter, CA 93221 at 2:00 p.m. Obituary: Robert Alfred Blattler, age 45, tragically passed away Sunday morning, April 28, 2024, at his home in Exeter. Robert was born in Zurich, Switzerland to parents Robert (Bob) Louis Blattler, and Regula (Regi) Schatz. His father was a US and Swiss citizen, and Regi a Swiss citizen. Robert was the only son of Bob and Regi, and grew up enjoying many Swiss family cultural events, and belonging to Swiss Clubs in Sacramento and Ripon. Bob and Regi raised Robert in Northern California, where he grew up in the town of Woodland, he attended Willow Springs grade school, Douglas Junior High and then Woodland High School. Robert found much joy in the great outdoors. During his childhood years, his family made yearly camping trips to Dillon Beach and to other destinations in California, Nevada, and Arizona while hosting relatives from Switzerland. One of his favorite fishing spots was Lake Berryessa with his dad. In the summer months, Bob would get home from work in the early morning and off they went for hours of fishing. In later life he also enjoyed fishing and many outdoor activities with his late father-in-law David Stever, who he came to enjoy and know much like a father too. He also enjoyed preparing and baking traditional Swiss Christmas cookies with his mom, she also taught him how to cook and manage his own home. He was a very self-reliant young man. Regi and Robert would spend hours doing puzzles and other games that they enjoyed playing as well as the national Swiss card game of Jass. Growing up Robert was in a summer bowling league, softball, tae kwon do and later in high school he played football for the Woodland Wolves. One summer, he traveled to Switzerland with his grandparents to see Regi who was taking care of her dad. He made many more trips to Switzerland with his parents through the years to visit cousins, aunts and uncle Martin his mom’s twin brother. Around 1993 Robert got his first chocolate lab he called Max, and they were inseparable. Max became a great bird dog flushing pheasants from their hiding places and he learned to read Max’s every move in order to go home with a limit of birds. He later had a very special chocolate lab named Maggie he often thought of as his spirit dog, and after her passing, he also had a third chocolate lab named Abby, along with yellow labs Molly and Maddie Jane and black labs Mandy and later a tri-paw named Paisley. In high school he enjoyed taking agriculture mechanics coursework and learned to weld and worked a part-time job at the Muller Ranch, and with that he saved up enough money to buy his first CJ-6 Jeep. It was a fixer-upper, he spent many evenings with his dad working on it, tore it down to the frame, painted it, performing upgrades he wanted and putting it back together, and of course the final color was fire engine red. After graduating from high school, Robert was accepted into the Shasta College Ag Farm program in Redding, CA, where a group of eight students lived on the farm to care for the livestock and operations. They had dinners together each evening to discuss farm management duties, and every week two of the students would oversee planning meals for the household, purchasing food and cooking for the farm resident group and would stay the weekend to take care of the animals while the others were free to leave campus. There was a new group annually, so after completing his rotation on the farm he finished his next year in junior college, while also holding a part-time job with Caltrans in their maintenance division in Redding to cover school expenses. At Shasta College, he studied Diesel Technology, and completed an A.S. Degree. He then transferred to CSU Fresno and received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Plant Science. He also was a licensed professional Certified Crop Advisor and a Pest Control Advisor, which provided him with unique skills and abilities to support the needs of a large and diverse farming company where he worked for the last 12 years. While completing his master’s thesis he found an intern opportunity with T-Systems International, an irrigation company, which later became his full-time employer, and led to a career in applied irrigation and crop management. T-Systems was acquired by John Deere Water Technologies, and Robert worked for the company until 2012 when he was offered a new position with a large farming company in Corcoran, known as the J.G. Boswell Company. From 2012 until present, he was their Agronomic Service Manager, a position they created for him when hired, and oversaw tens of thousands of acres of crops that were managed by soil moisture monitoring equipment and helped make agronomic recommendations to the other members of the farm management teams on how to best manage fertilizer, irrigation, and cultural practices on processing tomatoes, cotton, pistachios, and other crops. In 2009 he was recognized as a Rising Star Top 40 Under 40 Young Professionals honoree by the Visalia Times Delta newspaper and the Tulare County Economic Development Council. He was honored for outstanding service as an advisor to the Mt. Whitney Agricultural Advisory Committee and FFA program. He was also a finalist for the California Farm Bureau’s Outstanding Young Farmer and Rancher Excellence in Ag Award in 2009. He served on Tulare County Farm Bureau’s Board of Directors for several terms, was Chair of the Young Farmers and Ranchers Committee in 2009, and on the Farm Bureau’s Scholarship Committee where he enjoyed giving out scholarships to youth in the county. Robert and his dad enjoyed deep-sea fishing out of Sausalito, and to places like the Farallon Islands and in the San Francisco Bay, as well as in the Delta. In 2009 Robert and his father spent two weeks on a once in a lifetime guided hunt, in New Zealand hunting Red Stag deer and enjoyed sightseeing around Christchurch. Robert lost his beloved mother Regi in 2010, just a month before his marriage to Tricia. He was deeply saddened by her passing and struggled for the rest of his life to overcome the loss he felt. Robert met the love of his life, Tricia Stever Blattler in 2007, when he became involved in Tulare County Farm Bureau and attended Young Farmers and Ranchers events. Tricia had returned home to become the Executive Director of the Farm Bureau in 2007, and they met at a Farm Bureau meeting shortly after she was hired. Their relationship grew from friendship to romance in 2009, and they became engaged in April 2010 and married on October 23, 2010, and made their home in Exeter. He was an incredibly supportive husband, and accompanied Tricia to all her work events, always quietly in the background helping her set up and tear down late at night and at weekend events. Everyone in Farm Bureau saw Robert as Tricia’s amazing and special supporter, friend, life partner, and devoted husband. They shared a wonderful life and 15 years together, enjoying many outdoor adventures, Jeep trips, and serving together as very devoted foster volunteers to the Labrador Retriever Rescue of Fresno. Robert had a passion for outdoor activities and had two Labrador Retrievers when he met Tricia. He often took his dogs pheasant hunting with his dad and loved driving his restored CJ-6 1976 Red Jeep. It was natural that the CJ-6 led him to acquire newer, more modern Jeeps, and the couple acquired two additional Jeeps during their marriage, most recently a shiny fire red Rubicon JKU 4x4 Jeep that Robert loved working on and adding enhancements to for technical trails that they explored in places like Moab, Utah; Sedona, Arizona; Ouray, Colorado; and many places in between. He was very proud that he made most all the modifications on his Jeep himself, at his home garage, taking time to do it his way and the right way. Robert was part of the Tulare County Off Road Club and participated in helping teach other novice Jeep enthusiasts some of the safety and technical skills needed to navigate complicated trails. He participated in several Jeep Jamboree trips and even conquered the highly technical Rubicon Trail in August 2021 with a fellow Jeep buddy, and twice conquered highly technical trails like Black Bear Pass, and other epic trails near Telluride and Ouray, Colorado. He was extremely proud of those accomplishments. One of Robert and Tricia’s biggest passions was traveling with their Labrador Retrievers. When they married, they brought three labs into one household, one in each color; and found many ways to enjoy their companionship, taking them on many extraordinary vacations and Jeep trips. In 2014 after their first Lab Mandy passed away, they agreed to open their home to foster Labrador Retrievers for a rescue based in Fresno. Over the last 10 years they volunteered, they were an iconic couple, known for handling some of the most abused, neglected, and difficult dogs that came through the rescue, and to date they fostered 138 Labradors for the program. They transported, trained, and worked with countless other dogs in the Lab Rescue of Fresno, and worked with a few fosters with Central Valley Rescue Railroad. Robert was a dog whisperer in many respects and made huge transformations in the dogs they fostered and sent on to new homes and lives. Robert often brought home stray dogs from his rural commute between Exeter and Corcoran, and he was known as the dog lover at work who often helped feed and catch strays at the ranch yards. He had a gentle, kind, and kindred spirit to the dogs who had been through difficult pasts, and he had an amazing way about him that allowed him to help those dogs begin to settle and decompress as they left behind shelter life, or a life of neglect, abuse and trauma. He will be remembered by his friends in the rescue community as one of the most gentle, friendly, kind, and compassionate men in rescue work here in the Central Valley. He never once turned away helping a foster dog, and even though many took out their anxieties by digging and destroying things at their home in Exeter, Robert never complained, he would fix what was broken and move on. The same with dogs that were broken – he would fix them and help them transition to loving forever homes. Along with Jeep outings, one of his other more recent hobbies had been competitive speed shooting, which he had enjoyed for the last few years improving his speed and accuracy at the local shooting ranges. He also devoted many hours of time and volunteer service to the local Dog Park in Exeter in its early years and enjoyed giving his time and talent to volunteer needs with Lab Rescue and the Tulare County Off-Road Club. Robert leaves behind his beloved wife Tricia Stever Blattler, their pets, and their home in Exeter. He is also survived by his father Bob Blattler, and wife Barbara of Woodland, CA; his aunt Debbie Mahaffey, her husband, Bill, and his cousin Christene Adams, of Manteca; cousins across central California; an uncle, many aunts and cousins abroad in Switzerland; his mother-in-law Dee Stever of Idaho Falls, ID; brother-in-law and sister-in law James and Katy Onstott of Bryan, TX and many dear friends that will deeply miss his gigantic heart, his kind and gentle spirit, and his compassionate demeanor. Donations can be made to Labrador Retriever Rescue of Fresno, or a favorite charity or rescue of your choice. Services will be held on October 19, 2024, time and location to be announced later. 
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