Obituaries : Robert E. Kruse; L.A. Transit Contractor

Robert E. Kruse, who helped oversee Los Angeles’ rapid transit development and headed his family’s Kruse Construction Co. specializing in subway, flood control channel, dam and other infrastructure projects, has died. He was 69.

Kruse died Monday of pancreatic cancer at his home in Carpinteria, according to Richard Zook of Douglass and Zook Mortuary in Monrovia.

As an experienced contractor, Kruse was named in 1989 by the then-Southern California Rapid Transit District to the seven-member Rail Construction Corp. The unpaid subsidiary group was charged with overseeing design and construction on rail projects in Los Angeles County--including the light-rail Blue Line and Green Line and the underground Red Line.

Despite Kruse’s objections, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority abolished the Rail Construction Corp. in 1994 amid extensive wrangling over tunnel construction disasters along the Hollywood subway extension. Chairman of the Rail Construction Corp. at the time, Kruse said the group had been scapegoated.

Some members of the embattled MTA had argued that the Rail Construction Corp. was too cozy with contractors to oversee the subway project properly.

“This is the best-managed public works program in the country,” Kruse told The Times during the rancorous debate. “We [the construction corporation] make a fine sacrificial lamb at the moment.”

Kruse had come to the civic position with considerable experience in subway construction as well as the respect of his colleagues.

His Sun Valley-based company built portions of San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit and two stations and connecting tunnels for Washington’s Metro subway system.

He was elected president of the Associated General Contractors of California in 1985, served on the group’s board for 20 years and chaired many of its committees.

Kruse, who was born in Detroit, joined his father’s construction firm after earning an engineering degree from USC and serving as a Navy lieutenant in the Korean War.

At what was then MacDonald-Kruse, he supervised highway tunnel, flood control and other projects. In the early 1960s he directed the design and construction of the Huntington Harbour development in Orange County.

Kruse served as president of Kruse Construction Co. from 1968 to 1990. For the next five years, he was president of Kruse Equipment Corp., leasing heavy equipment to construction contractors.

A longtime resident of Glendale, Kruse served on the board of the Glendale YMCA, taught Sunday school at Calvary Bible Church in Burbank and was a leader in his local Republican Club.

He is survived by his wife of 30 years, Trudy, and their six children, Kelly and Darin Kruse, Christine Rogan, Caron McIntosh and Ed and Eric Apffel; one brother, Jon of Glendale, and 23 grandchildren.

Visitation is scheduled for 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Douglass and Zook Mortuary, 600 E. Foothill Blvd., Monrovia; with funeral services Saturday at Calvary Bible Church.

The family has asked that memorial donations be sent to the Santa Barbara Cancer Foundation, 300 W. Pueblo, Santa Barbara, CA 93105.