Ira “Bob” Born, a candy company executive known as the “Father of Peeps” for mechanizing the process to make marshmallow chicks, has died. He was 98.
Just Born Quality Confections, the 100-year-old family-owned company Born led for much of his life, said Monday that he had died peacefully on Sunday.
Born began his life in New York City on Sept. 29, 1924. His father, Sam Born, was a Russian immigrant who started Just Born shortly before his son’s birth. The family later moved to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where Just Born is still based.
Bob Born graduated from Lehigh University with a degree in engineering physics. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served as a radar specialist and a lieutenant on a destroyer in the Pacific. Later, the Navy sent him to the University of Arizona and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for graduate work in math and physics….