Bruce Gilchrist

GILCHRIST, Bruce, died May 23, 2015. Bruce grew up in England during World War II. He was a serious and dedicated student, earning his Ph.D. by the time he was 21. Believing his best shot at academic and social independence lay in America, Bruce boarded the Queen Mary arriving in New York with a magnificent brain, one brown suit and about 25 dollars in cash. Bruce worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton, taught math at Syracuse University, was recruited to a tiny computer start-up called IBM, started his own computer company and finally spent many years as the head of computing at Columbia University. He believed in giving back and served on the local school board and as the town supervisor in New Castle, New York, where our family grew up. Although the list of Bruce's academic and civic accomplishments is impressive to us he was our "Dad." He took us to baseball games, on summer vacations to New Hampshire, and off on college visits. At the dinner table he silently tolerated all manner of ridiculous statements made by his three sons. As children we saw him as the "enforcer" and my mom was the "softie." But later we came to realize our Dad had an amazing ability to be...

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