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Brigadier General
Robert W. Lamb
Permanent Professor 1970–1979
B.S., Arizona State University
M.S., New Mexico Highlands University
Ph.D., University of Colorado
Bob Lamb, the Academy’s 25th Permanent Professor, was born in 1929 in Lone Tree, Indiana. He began his higher education at Phoenix College, receiving an Associate in Arts degree in 1948, then at Arizona State University, earning a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry in 1950. A year later, Bob earned his Master’s degree from Highlands University, Las Vegas, NM, and continued his graduate work in chemistry at Purdue University, where he was given a direct commission in the Air Force. After completing three months of basic training at Lackland AFB, TX, in 1953, he was sent to the Army Chemical Warfare Center at Englewood, MD, conducting research on the detection of toxic gases. In 1954 he was assigned to the Air Force Materials Laboratory at Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, as Research Chemist and Project Engineer. In 1956 Bob was assigned to the newly formed Air Force Academy, still at the temporary site in Denver, as Instructor of Chemistry, and two years later became the first officer sponsored by the department for a PhD. He spent two years at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and returned to the Academy in 1960, where he finished his dissertation and received his PhD in 1961. In 1963 Bob was reassigned for one year to the new Frank J. Seiler Research Laboratory, which was being established at the Academy to conduct basic research of potential use to the Air Force. His responsibility was to design, plan, and equip the chemistry laboratory, while advancing his own research interests in organic chemistry. In 1965 he was assigned to the European Office of Aerospace Research in Brussels, Belgium, charged with developing insight into research and exploratory development programs across Europe, Africa, India, and the Middle East. Returning to the Academy in 1968, Bob became the Director of Advanced Courses, then Deputy Head of the Department of Chemistry He was selected a Permanent Professor in 1970. During his tenure as Department Head, the Department of Life and Behavioral Sciences was divided, with the Life Sciences staff merging with Chemistry faculty to form the Department of Chemical and Biological Sciences. Bob admirably led this combined department for four years, building the programs to a level that permitted the establishment of the Department of Biology in 1980. Bob retired as a brigadier general in 1979.
In retirement, Bob spent more than two years as the Manager of Training and Education for the Bechtel Corporation in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. For the next 14 years Bob was Vice President of Boston University, first for three years as Vice President of External Programs, then as Head of Boston University’s Overseas Graduate Program, which he ran from offices in Heidelberg, Germany, and later London, England. In 1996 he returned to the States and retired in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Update (2020): Bob Lamb died in 2019 and is buried in the Air Force Academy Cemetery.