{"id":32029,"date":"2014-07-18T16:21:48","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T20:21:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=32029"},"modified":"2019-02-08T19:19:09","modified_gmt":"2019-02-09T00:19:09","slug":"bob-weisman-an-appreciation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2014\/07\/18\/bob-weisman-an-appreciation\/","title":{"rendered":"Bob Weisman \u2013 A Remembrance"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Bob Weisman<\/p><\/div>\n

Contributors to this remembrance include Dan Organisciak, Steve Berberich, Nick Reo, Michael Leffak, Jerry Alter and Robert Fyffe.<\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Robert (Bob) Weisman passed away on July 2, 2014, aged 77, leaving a great void in the Wright State family. For more than 30 years, as department chair, associate dean, interim dean and consummate faculty member, Bob\u2019s contributions and his sage advice to many of us, even during his retirement, helped to establish the fabric of who we are today. He will be sorely missed by all who knew him and who benefitted, knowingly or unknowingly, from his leadership and advice.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Michael Leffak says, \u201cBob instilled a sense of trust in those he counseled because he was pragmatic and, more importantly, principled. He was a man of strong religious beliefs, whose faith was translated into everyday action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bob Weisman was recruited as the inaugural chair of the Department of Biochemistry, joining Wright State as professor and chair of the department in January 1977. Previously, Bob held faculty positions held at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. A native of Kingston, N.Y. (about 90 miles north of New York City), Bob received his Bachelor of Science (with honors) in Pharmacy from Union College in Schenectady,\u00a0New York, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Bob also held a staff fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and visiting professorships at the University of California-San Francisco and Washington University-St. Louis, in the fields of nuclear magnetic resonance and positron emission tomography \u2014 fields that are now mainstays for biomedical research.<\/p>\n

Bob\u2019s skills in these fledgling areas enabled him in 1985, to help establish the Kettering-Scott\/Wright State University Magnetic Resonance Laboratory, bringing together scientists and clinicians in the School of Medicine and Kettering Medical Center. He served as the initial director of this laboratory and recruited several new scientists to spearhead biomedical research at Wright State using magnetic resonance technologies. Although now transformed, the Wright State Magnetic Resonance Laboratory is still in existence, and Bob\u2019s inspiration remains a part of the laboratory.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, during the 1980\u2019s, while serving as chair of the department and as initial director of the newly created magnetic resonance laboratory, Bob simultaneously served as director of the then nascent Biomedical Sciences Ph.D. program, a multidisciplinary program involving multiple academic departments across the School of Medicine, the College of Science and Mathematics, and the College of Engineering and Computer Science.<\/p>\n

As chair at our fledgling medical school, Bob derived great satisfaction from discerning the potential in new assistant professors, several of whom remain as senior faculty in the department. Bob\u2019s mantra when recruiting new faculty was, \u201cYou have the chance to get in on the ground floor and build this department.\u201d As his wife, Beverly, recalled, \u201cHe loved the department and was proud of you guys.\u201d When Bob stepped down as chair in 1989, after 12 years of stellar service in which he made the department a vibrant place to work, and after his subsequent sabbatical at Washington University, Bob continued on as faculty, and in new leadership positions in both the School of Medicine and College of Science and Mathematics. During this time Bob served for many years as associate dean in the School of Medicine, driving forward the biomedical research enterprise, and as assistant, associate, and interim dean in the College of Science and Mathematics.<\/p>\n

Even after retirement in 2004, Bob still came back to help the department by teaching in medical school courses. This activity nicely bookended Bob\u2019s teaching contributions here, because, as <\/strong>Dan Organisciak remembers, when Bob arrived as chair, bringing much needed medical school experience with him, he took over the medical school course that year and proceeded to receive a highly coveted \u201cNo Dose Teaching Award\u201d from the first-year students!<\/p>\n

Any summary of Bob\u2019s career, such as above, cannot do justice to the totality of his contributions. Bob was much more than a scientist, teacher, administrator, or leader. Critically, as <\/strong>Dan Organisciak says, \u201cBob really cared about Wright State, the department, and especially the faculty.\u201d This characteristic recurs over and over again when discussing Bob\u2019s relationships with faculty, young and old.<\/p>\n

As Steven Berberich <\/strong>and others have said, \u201cBob had the gift of finding and nurturing, the potential in others,\u201d and Dan Organisciak stated, from long experience, that \u201cBob\u2019s ability to recognize scientific talent was exceptional, as was his administrative skill.\u201d Jerry Alter notes that \u201cBob viewed his success as tightly linked to the success of those around him, he worked to enable that.\u201d Steven Berberich had the good fortune to benefit from Bob\u2019s mentorship both as a student and as a faculty member, remembering clearly that \u201cBob would take the time to listen, exploring the pros and cons of a situation from the perspective of his confidant, and, rather than giving an opinion, helped the confidant to formulate their own.\u201d As Nick Reo, who was mentored by Bob as a newly recruited young faculty member in the magnetic resonance group, says, \u201cBob made a lasting impression in my life as a boss, a colleague, an advisor, and a friend. I feel privileged to have known him, and I will miss him dearly.\u201d<\/p>\n

This type of powerful mentorship has had a lasting impact on many of us. Recruitment and mentoring of new young faculty was very important to Bob, but he had the ability to also mentor and encourage other faculty as well. As many of us moved on through the faculty ranks, and even into administrative positions, we, like Steven Berberich says, \u201cfind myself thinking about how Bob would approach an issue.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everyone who knew Bob well knew that he was animated, witty, savvy and fun to be around. He was a great story-teller and loved to make others laugh.\u00a0 As Dan Organisciak recounts, \u201cBob often said that his philosophy on life was simple: \u2018Only the Best.\u2019\u201d This was especially true of his love of music, his choice of fine cigars (which he also taught to the faculty) and his selection of exceptional single malt scotch, which some of us have been privileged to share, over wonderful conversation and exquisite food. He and Bev loved to travel in recent retirement years especially to visit their children and grandchildren, as well as forays to Europe and other destinations. Bob\u2019s passion for classical music was especially powerful, reflected in his years of activity as an announcer on Dayton Public Radio\u2019s classical station, WDPR. This passion would on occasion lead to, usually merited, strong and pointed critique of performances that, in his view, fell short of standard. In particular, Bob particularly enjoyed recounting how he stood in the audience after what he felt was a lackluster symphony performance and called, \u201cHave you no shame?\u201d to the conductor. But he never gave up supporting the arts or trying to teach us how and why to appreciate classical music.<\/p>\n

Ever gracious, generous, enthusiastic and full of humanity, Bob always saw the positive side of any situation. As a wonderful friend, all of his character and personality came through in abundance, leaving each of us feeling better about ourselves and our place in the grand scheme of things, even if the interaction was all too brief.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert (Bob) Weisman passed away on July 2, 2014, at the age of 77, leaving a great void in the Wright State family. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":32066,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,2100,2111,2064,2112,2069,2023,711,725,2016,2115,715,2109,719],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-biochemistry-and-molecular-biology","category-biochemistry-and-molecular-biology-science-mathematics","category-biology","category-biomedical-sciences","category-chemistry","category-faculty","category-faculty-staff","category-home-news-sidebar","category-medicine","category-neuroscience-cell-biology-and-physiology","category-news","category-pre-health","category-special-categories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32029"}],"version-history":[{"count":37,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32220,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32029\/revisions\/32220"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}