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James R. Meindl, Carmichael Professor in School of Management
MEINDL
A memorial service will be held at 2:45 p.m. tomorrow in the Chapel of Forest Lawn Cemetery for James R. Meindl, Donald S. Carmichael Professor of Organization and Human Resources in the School of Management, who died suddenly on Saturday. He was 52.
A member of the UB faculty since 1981, Meindl served for 10 years as director of the School of Management's Center for International Leadership.
A highly respected and popular teacher among MBA students, he received the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1996. Meindl also was a frequent and valued contributor to the school's international programs, traveling several times a year to teach regular courses in Singapore and China, and executive development seminars in Asia and Europe.
Meindl had an international reputation for his research on behavior in organizations, with a special expertise in leadership studies. He was especially skilled in the application of leadership theory to real-world settings. He was best known for his work on the "romance of leadership," a unique perspective on charisma and other popular forms of leadership. A forthcoming article, written with two of his former students, is titled, "Charting the Language of Leadership: President Bush and the Crisis of 9/11." Meindl served as a mentor to numerous doctoral students, publishing with them regularly and often retaining collaborations with them after their graduations from UB.
He was a scholar of high standing in the academic community, authoring or co-authoring more than 60 scholarly articles, many of which appeared in the most competitive journals in the field. He frequently was invited to present the results of his research at major universities and scholarly societies in the U.S. and abroad. He had an active role in the Academy of Management—the leading national academic society in his field—serving on and chairing many of its divisions and committees. A particularly noteworthy appointment was as chair of the Organizational Behavior Division of the academy.
He was editor of a book series and a member of the editorial boards of several of the leading academic journals in his field.
In addition to his work at UB, Meindl was a generous contributor of his time and expertise to local community agencies and organizations. He was on the board of directors of EPIC (Every Person Influences Children), and gave frequent seminars and provided consulting services to the United Way of Buffalo and Erie County, the Buffalo Alliance for Education, the Buffalo Police Department and the Center for Non-Profit Organizations, among others.
He also was an avid outdoorsman, tennis player, skier and reader.
A graduate of the Manlius Military Academy and the University of Rochester, Meindl received master's and doctoral degrees in social psychology from the University of Waterloo in Canada. Prior to joining UB, he was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Kevin Pitra, former UB soccer captain, GSE graduate
Kevin Pitra, a former captain of the UB men's soccer team who received his master's degree in higher education from UB this spring, died early yesterday after a long battle with melanoma.
Pitra, who graduated from UB in 2002 with a bachelor's degree in sociology, was diagnosed with cancer in spring 2002. He underwent surgery and intensive Interferon-A chemotherapy while attending classes in the Graduate School of Education and working in the GSE admissions office.
Students, athletes, friends and UB faculty and staff members held a fund raiser in November 2002 to raise money to help Pitra pay for uninsured medical costs (See story at http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/vol35/vol35n11/articles/PitraFundraiser.html).
Pitra was considered an aggressive and focused leader of the soccer team, not just as captain, but also as a mentor to younger players. He was named the MAC Tournament's Most Valuable Player as a senior and was an academic all-star as well, named in 2001 to the Mid-American Conference Academic Honor Roll.
Funeral services will be held in Pitra's hometown of Solon, Ohio.