ROLLIN M. GERSTACKER was an engineering graduate of Cleveland’s Case Institute of Technology. After graduation, he remained in the Cleveland area. He worked throughout his career as a manager at Bartlett and Snow, an engineering and construction firm that built boating machinery.
The Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation was founded by Mrs. Eda U. Gerstacker in 1957 in memory of her husband. The Gerstackers were the parents of Carl A. Gerstacker.
Rollin instilled in his son an interest in business. When Carl was a young teenager Rollin encouraged him to invest all of his savings in the Dow Chemical Company. Carl (BSE ChE ’38, LLD Hon. ’93) began a career at Dow upon graduation from the University of Michigan College of Engineering. In 1960, he became chairman of the board. Thirteen years later, BusinessWeek labeled him the senior statesman of the chemical industry. He retired in 1981. He received an Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Michigan in 1982 and the first Alumni Society Medal from the College of Engineering in 1992.
The Gerstacker Foundation has made many notable grants, concentrated in the states of Michigan and Ohio, in the areas of general community support; colleges, universities and research institutions; music and the arts; social services; youth activities; health care and research; and churches.
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Endowed professorships are essential to the University of Michigan College of Engineering. They provide resources to attract, reward and retain outstanding faculty in all areas of engineering. Appoinrment to an endowed professorship is reserved for a scholar of national and often inrernational stature who has earned a highly distinguished record of teaching, research and publishing.
These named professorships, funded and named by donors, bring prestige and recognition to leading members of our faculey and reward their contributions to the institution and to the field. Equally important, endowed professorships attract new teaching and research talent from outside the University and continue in perpetuity to enrich the community of scholars at Michigan.
The Rollin M. Gerstacker Foundation has provided a gift of $2,000,000 to the College of Engineering of the University of Michigan to establish and support an endowed, full professorship to be known as the Rollin M. Gerstacker Professor of Engineering. The holder will be a professor in the College of Engineering who will be appointed to the professorship for five-year renewable tenns.
The Regents of the University of Michigan have appointed Tamas I. Gombosi as the Rollin M. Gerstacker Professor of Engineering, College of Engineering, effective September 1, 2007 through August 31, 2012.