Robert L. Mobley; Civic Leader, Bank Official

Robert L. Mobley, a longtime Ventura County civic leader and top official with the Bank of A. Levy, died Tuesday at his Ventura home following a long illness. He was 71.

Born Aug. 24, 1925, in Shadyside, Ohio, Mobley was a county resident for 43 years. Until his retirement in 1991, he spent 29 years as a senior vice president, senior lending officer and regional branch manager with the Bank of A. Levy, and spent many years as chairman of the Achille Levy Foundation.

But perhaps it was Mobley’s long legacy of civic duty that friends and acquaintances will remember best.

Beginning in 1954 with a six-year stint as executive secretary of the Ventura County Taxpayers Assn., Mobley served as chairman of the Ventura County Grand Jury in 1967, president of the Bankers Assn. of Southern California in 1979, and president of the Greater Ventura Chamber of Commerce in 1981.

He served as president of the Ventura County Economic Development Assn. in 1983, president of the Ventura County Contractors’ Assn. in 1985 and president of the Western Independent Bankers Assn. in 1989.

His son, Ventura County Farm Bureau President Michael Mobley, said his father would join organizations with the goal of becoming president or chairman, always intent on doing the delegating and never content to take a back seat.

“He was a great role model, especially being such a prominent member of the community,” he said. “It just made us aware that you do need to put time into the community, that what you put in ultimately comes back. . . . I think he felt a sense of duty.”

At the time of his death, Mobley was active in the California Bankers Assn. and was a member of both the board of trustees of Community Memorial Hospital and the board of directors for American Commercial Bank.

Socially, Mobley said, his father’s loquacious nature and unique take on current events would usually make him the life of the party.

“I would love to have even a tenth of his ability to be able to put on a show,” he said.

Mobley is survived by sons Michael and Thomas, both of Ventura; daughter Susan Whitmore of Longmont, Colo.; daughter Marianne Nelson of Ventura; sister Carol Ralston of Shadyside, Ohio; brothers Charles Mobley of Borrego Springs and Ernest Mobley of Sanger, and five grandchildren.

Both Mobley and his wife, Margaret, who died in 1990, had a longtime love for the performing arts. The family asks that memorial contributions be made to the Robert and Margaret Mobley Perpetual Scholarship for Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts, Hancock College, Santa Maria.

A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at the First Baptist Church of Ventura.