Bruce Curran

1948 - 2020

Bruce H. Curran

April 14, 1948-June 20, 2020

Durham

To the amazement of all those who knew and loved him, the force of nature that was Bruce Curran was stilled last week when he passed peacefully from this life surrounded by family. The cause was complications from surgery.

Bruce became a true citizen of the world early in life. Born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa to Shirley and Bill Curran, he spent a year in Vienna, Austria at age 6, where his father was a Fulbright Scholar, and later two happy years as a teenager in Athens, Greece, where he made lifelong friends while his father served in the Diplomatic Corps. He returned to the states to graduate from Phillips Academy Andover in 1966, then earned his undergraduate degree cum laude in English and history from the University of Connecticut in 1970.

Having always dreamed of flying jets, he then joined the U.S Air Force as a Captain and got to do just that, flying medi-vac and transport missions in Vietnam and later on strategic airlifts that took him all around the world. (In his heart of hearts, he longed to be an astronaut, but it was not to be.)

After his service ended in 1978, he obtained both his M.A. degree in communications and an executive M.B.A. in pharmaceutical industry management from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. After an early career stop with Carolina Power and Light, he joined Burroughs Wellcome (later to become Glaxo Smith Kline) in Research Triangle Park as a communications manager in 1985, where he dove headlong into the communications effort surrounding the development of the world's first anti-viral "cocktail" to treat AIDS. Bruce went on to play an instrumental role in planning the first World AIDS Day in 1988, in addition to other efforts combating epilepsy, hepatitis B, multiple sclerosis, and many other diseases.

Even prior to retiring from GSK in 2002, Bruce had turned his boundless energy toward his lifelong passion for education. As adjunct faculty in the Journalism Department at UNC, he taught a variety of communications courses almost continuously since 1990, and since 2017, in the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at Duke University. At Duke, he also served in a key advisory role that included planning an ambitious new lecture series before he took ill.

Bruce approached every endeavor with great enthusiasm and a passion for relationship and service. (His enthusiasms included a passable golf game and longtime rooting interest in the Yankees.) He will be missed terribly by his wife of nine years and longtime devoted companion Sudi Swirles, his son Robert Curran of Richmond, VA, brother Barry Curran (Nevus Valls) of Barcelona, Spain, sister Courtney Curran of Phoenix. AZ, three nephews, one niece, and a huge circle of friends and admirers who, once they met Bruce, invariably expanded that circle ever the wider.