Memorial Resolution: William van Bogaert Robertson
William van Bogaert Robertson passed away in Tiburon, California, on the 7th of May 2006 at the age of 91 years. Robby was a Professor of Biochemistry and Director of Research in the Department of Pediatrics from 1960 to 1979.
Robby or Van as he was called, was born in New York City on September 15, 1914. He grew up in New Jersey, and received his undergraduate and masters degree in engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1934. He then went on to receive his doctorate in chemistry from the Albert Ludwig University in Freiburg, Germany in 1937. For the next two years he was a research chemist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. From 1940 - 1943 he worked at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, and then was a research associate in the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago. From 1945 - 1961 he was a Professor of Biochemistry and Experimental Medicine at University of Vermont in Burlington, where he first meet Dr. Norman Kretchmer.
Soon after Dr. Kretchmer became the Chairman of Pediatrics at Stanford in 1959, he recruited Robby to join the department, and develop the research laboratories at the Children's Hospital at Stanford, the former "con home." He also directed the clinical laboratories and was very much interested in mucopolysaccharide metabolism, calcium and phosphorous metabolism, and the role of vitamin C in collagen biosynthesis and wound healing.
At Stanford he served on the Medical School Admissions Committee, was an advisor to post-doctoral fellows, and also was very active in the American Association of University Professors.
During his tenure at Stanford, he was a visiting professor at the University del Valle in Cali, Colombia (1967), and at the University of Saigon in Vietnam in 1973. He worked with the faculty at those institutions in curriculum planning and development.
After he left Stanford, he was a program director for National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C., at which time he focused on various aspects of agricultural and marine biochemistry.
When he retired from the National Science Foundation at the age of 73, he had brief sojourns to Winnipeg and to Shreveport, Louisiana, before retiring to Monterey, California. During the time that he was in Monterey, he worked with the Marine Advanced Technology Education Project, where he helped them secure a grant from the National Science Foundation, and was an advisor to their program.
Robby was an avid, and very competent downhill skier, and he continued to be a dedicated sailor, and fisherman even into his late 80's.
After his wife, Alice passed away in 1967, Robby married Maria Tejera. He is survived by his wife and children, William van Bogaert, Jr., Wilhelmina and Jose Rafael, and grandchildren, Jodi and Joshua.
Robby had requested that no memorial services be held. He was cremated, and his ashes were scattered at sea. Individuals can make donations to their favorite charities in his name, and his family suggested opening a good bottle of red wine to toast him and to remember his life.
Committee: Philip Sunshine, M.D.