Frank Urbanowski

Frank Urbanowski

Age: 79 • Burlington

Frank Urbanowski, a former resident of Lake Street in Burlington VT, passed away after a long illness on September 19th in Essex Junction, Vermont. He was 79. Mr. Urbanowski served as director of the The MIT Press in Cambridge MA for an unprecedented 27 years, building it into one of the largest and most successful scholarly publishers in the world.

Mr. Urbanowski He served as director of the Press from June 1975 to January 2003, and is acknowledged as a pioneer in the strategy of focused disciplinary specialization now widely adopted by university presses.

Shortly after his arrival at the Press, Mr. Urbanowski devised and implemented the publishing strategy that was fundamental to its subsequent remarkable success: that of focusing acquisitions and marketing efforts on a small number of selected disciplines. Under Mr. Urbanowski's guidance, the MIT Press grew from $3 million to $22 million in annual revenues, and from publishing an annual list of 135 books and four journals to 220 books and over 30 journals.

Among the highlights of Mr. Urbanowski's time at the MIT Press were the establishment of a desktop publishing operation in the late 1980's, the creation of the first university press website, and the publication of the first interactive electronic book, City of Bits by William Mitchell, in 1994. He also established the MIT Press Bookstore on Main Street in Kendall Square in 1981. In the late 1990's, Mr. Urbanowski created the Digital Projects Lab, an innovative digital publishing group that led to today's successful CogNet (the online community for the cognitive sciences) and ArchNet (the online resource for Islamic architecture). In addition, he ably steered the Press through two significant economic downturns, managing strong recoveries each time. The Press celebrated its 25th anniversary as a full-scale university press in 1986, with Mr. Urbanowski, serving as both director and editor-in-chief, citing "faith in our staff" as his core reason for confidence in the future.

During his career he served on numerous boards including: Cambridge Insight Meditation Center, Wisdom Press, University California Press and University Press North-East. Mr. Urbanowski was an engineering graduate of Virginia Polytechnical Institute and had many and diverse interests, from cabinet making to classical music. He was an opera fan, an avid rower and member of the Cambridge Boat Club and traveled widely.

At his retirement, he moved to Vermont where he enjoyed the country life in Cornwall, then the life by the lake in Burlington, and then time in Winooski.

He is survived by his wife, Julia Blocksma of Winooski Vermont; his daughters by a previous marriage: Alexandra Urbanowski of Moretown, Vermont and Monterey, California; and Tasha Urbanowski of Englewood, New Jersey, and their husbands; two granddaughters; two step children, Dewey Dunnington and Anneke Dunnington; and many cousins. A private ceremony will be held by the family in Vermont, with a memorial celebration event to be announced later.

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