United States Navy Rear Admiral Robert Halley Wertheim was born in Carlsbad, NM, on November 9, 1922, to Joseph Wertheim and Emma Vorenberg Wertheim. Robert married Barbara Selig on December 26, 1946. They had two sons, Joseph and David, and one grandson, Benjamin. Barbara S. Wertheim passed away in January 2001. Robert Wertheim was married to his second wife, Joan Levin, in 2005. They lived in San Diego, CA, and enjoyed playing golf. Robert passed away in 2020 at the age of 97.

During his 38-year career in the Navy, Robert Wertheim was Director of Navy Strategic Systems Projects, responsible for the research, development, production, and operational support of the Navy's submarine-launched ballistic missile systems: Polaris, Poseidon, and Trident. After retirement from the Navy in 1980, he served for seven years as Lockheed Corporation's Senior Vice President of Science and Engineering, and as a private consultant to Science Applications International Corporation.

Wertheim graduated from the New Mexico Military Institute in 1942 and the U.S. Naval Academy in 1945. He later studied advanced ordnance engineering in the Navy's postgraduate program and, in 1954, received a Master of Science degree in nuclear physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. From 1968 to 1969, he attended the Harvard Business School advanced management program.

Following World War Il and postwar destroyer duty, he was selected to participate in the Navy's first special (nuclear) weapons assembly team at Sandia Base, New Mexico. Later, he served on Norton Sound, the Navy's guided missile test ship, and on Los Angeles, the first heavy cruiser to be armed with the nuclear cruise missile Regulus. In 1956, Wertheim reported to the Navy Special Projects Office that was formed to take the Anny's Jupiter intermediate-range ballistic missile to sea. While there, he was responsible for organizing and leading the team that conceived, designed, and developed the reentry payload for POLARIS and POSEIDON, the Navy's first submarine-launched strategic ballistic missile systems.

After his initial tour in Special Projects, Wertheim served as a technical officer at the Naval Ordnance Test Station, China Lake, and as a military assistant to the Director of Defense Research and Engineering. He returned to the Special Projects Office in 1965, advancing to Technical Director (since renamed the Strategic Systems Programs Office) in 1968. He served in that position until 1977, when he became Director. He retired from the Navy in October 1980.

A former member of the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control and the Secretary of Energy's Laboratory Operations Board, Wertheim was also Chairman of the Los Alamos National Laboratory National Security Advisory Board, a member of the Joint Department of Defense/Department of Energy Advisory Committee on Nuclear Weapons Surety and the National Security Panel of the University of California President's Council. Wertheim served on advisory groups for the United States Strategic Command, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Defense Science Board, the Naval Studies Board of the National Academies of Science and Engineering, and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory.

Rear Admiral Wertheim was honored with the Navy's Distinguished Service Medal (two awards), the Legion of Merit, the 1972 Gold Medal of the American Society of Naval Engineers, the Rear Admiral WilliamS, Parsons Award of the Navy League, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Distinguished Public Service Medal, and the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service (two awards). He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering, of Sigma Xi and Tau Beta Pi; an honorary member of the American Society of Naval Engineers; and a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics and the California Council on Science and Technology. Wertheim was honored by the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association with its 2005 Distinguished Graduate Award for a lifetime of service to the Navy and the nation and by the Naval Submarine League as its 2006 Distinguished submariner.