Bart Reitz hardly needs an introduction to most of you, his classmates – he’s been a prime mover and participant in many alumni affairs, whether as class technology chairman, cycling with classmates in the mountains of Italy, or pushing to completion our 50^th reunion yearbook.

 

Bart is a friend who loves to engage in dialog. He’s genuinely interested in others, and the best example of a true student of life and thought that I’ve been blessed to know over the past half century. And his education in life has progressed under the tutelage of his wife, Nan, and their two daughters – all teachers. It’s no surprise that he is one of the most dedicated promoters of our Princeton alumni group, and other communities of colleagues devoted to conversation in general.

 

Bart has been instrumental in founding several discussion groups in his community of Wyoming near Cincinnati, where Bart and Nan have lived for much of their married life. One group, organized over 20 years ago, meets to discuss a wide range of issues, philosophical, religious, and political. At a typical session there, we might hear Bart holding forth on something like the philosophy of Emanuel Kant. Or on a Wednesday you might catch him in a study group in a Presbyterian church, discussing Tolstoy’s distillation of the gospels, or a Marlynne Robinson book.

 

True, Bart started his career as an engineer, as several of us here have. Armed with an MBA, he has earned his bread as business manager, marketeer, and consultant – selling things like electric motors and paper. But that was only a “mask” for his true interests. In some sense, as the saying goes, “Heaven is his vocation, and therefore he counts earthly employments avocations.”