Bob Peterson Left Lasting Impression on New College and Its Students

March 20, 2012 — It is with great sadness that New College of Florida announces the passing of J. Robert “Bob” Peterson, longtime College and Foundation board member and generous contributor to New College and its students.  Peterson died on Thursday, March 15, 2012, of complications following surgery.  He was 88 years old.
“I had great personal fondness as well as respect for Bob,” said New College President Mike Michalson in recalling a man whose generosity impacted not only the school but countless other arts and education organizations in the Sarasota area. “He was a remarkable man, extremely bright, who had an impressive command of the details of New College life.  Although Bob was very no-nonsense, he possessed a very droll wit that he would deploy with uncanny timing.  He was ‘courtly,’ in the best sense of the term, and he will be very greatly missed.”
A former general counsel and senior vice president at United Parcel Service (UPS), Peterson and his wife, Lee, relocated to Sarasota in the late 1980s, following Bob’s retirement from the shipping giant.  Soon thereafter, they discovered that one of their sons had schizophrenia. Doctors recommended hospitalization, but Bob and Lee disagreed and instead founded the National Alliance of Research in Schizophrenia and Depression (NARSAD), later renamed the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.  The organization remains the largest donor-supported organization of its kind in the United States.
Peterson began his long association with New College in 1997, when friend and current New College of Florida Board of Trustees Chair Bob Johnson encouraged him to join the board of the New College Foundation.  He served on that board from February 1997 until June 2008, when he was named a trustee emeritus of the Foundation.  In 2006, Peterson was named to the Board of Trustees of New College of Florida, replacing outgoing member John Cranor.  Peterson’s board position was renewed by the Florida Board of Governors in 2008 and currently runs through 2013.
Over the years, Peterson contributed more than $2.5 million to the College, its faculty and its students, including a charitable remainder trust of $2.1 million made in 2008.  In honor of his generosity, New College named one of its new residence halls in honor of Bob and his wife Lee in that year.
Bob Peterson is survived by his wife of 58 years, Lee M. Peterson, by his daughter Janice and her husband Timothy Radder of Los Angeles, CA, by his son David Peterson of Sarasota, by his son Jeffrey Peterson of Westport, CT and by grandchildren Philip, Annabel and Hunter.
The family asks that donations honoring Bob be made to Sunshine from Darkness, sunshinefromdarkness.org.
For more information on J. Robert “Bob” Peterson and his generous contributions to New College of Florida and its students, please contact the New College Foundation at (941) 487-4800 or email [email protected].