University Times

Robert J. A. Pratt, former head of the Greensburg campus’s management department and a former professor at the Katz Graduate School of Business in Oakland, died Aug. 3, 2004. He was 74 and had retired from UPG in fall 2003.

Pratt’s legacy at UPG includes the establishment of the Robert J.A. Pratt Endowed Student Resource Fund. The fund provides selected students in the Department of Management with tuition assistance and assistance for books, travel or emergencies.

“Bob was a teacher who not only excited students about his subject, but also inspired great devotion and fondness. Years after they graduated, his students still remembered both his insights and his foibles,” said Frank A. Cassell, president of Pitt-Greensburg.

Carl F. Poke, professor of political science, was the dean of academics at Pitt-Greensburg in 1982, when Pratt began his full-time teaching career there after teaching for 20 years at the Katz school.

“There was a period when he was teaching at the Katz Graduate School of Business and teaching part time for us,” Poke said. “We were starting to move toward granting our own degrees, and the business program was the largest single program in terms of enrollment. We felt we needed a full-time person in business, and Dr. Pratt looked like a good choice because he had developed the undergraduate major that Oakland had.”

Poke remembered Pratt as someone who developed a relationship with his students based on respect. “Among business students, over time, he developed an image as being very difficult in terms of setting solid academic standards, but, at the same time, he was a compassionate human being,” Poke said. “He applied standards uniformly, and he didn’t play favorites.”

Jason Gongaware, president of the Pitt-Greensburg Alumni Association and one of Pratt’s former students, recalled Pratt as being respected not only in the academic community but also in the business world.

“He was able to provide students with real-world experience,” Gongaware said. “He impacted students from the beginning of his career until he retired.”

Pratt’s teaching style and personality remained with students long after graduation. “Among Pitt-Greensburg alumni, he was one of the most popular and the most asked-about professors,” he said.

Gongaware fondly recalled Pratt as “a real character.” “When you asked him how he was doing, his standard answer, no matter what, was ‘terrible,'” Gongaware said.

Will Hoffman, a financial planner from Greensburg, graduated in 2001 with a degree in business. Like Gongaware, he remembered Pratt’s distinctive personality.

“(Pratt) definitely had a style that was different from everyone else’s,” Hoffman said. “I only had him for three classes, and I really began to appreciate his teaching methods once I had a chance to apply them.”

Pratt graduated from Carnegie Institute of Technology as an electrical engineer and received his MBA from Carnegie Tech in 1960.

From 1953 to 1957, he served in the U.S. Air Force and was in the Strategic Air Command as a navigator on a B-47 aircraft. He was the editor of the Pittsburgh Business Review newsletter, which is no longer published.

Pratt is survived by Laura, his wife of 49 years; three daughters, and five grandchildren.

Gifts in Pratt’s honor may be made to the Robert J.A. Pratt Endowed Student Resource Fund, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, 1150 Mt. Pleasant Road, Greensburg 15601; or to Covenant Presbyterian Church, 200 N. Market St., Ligonier, 15658.