Robert Lee Gilbertson

Robert Lee Gilbertson
R.L. Gilbertson at The Robert L. Gilbertson Mycological Herbarium
Born	(1925-01-15)January 15, 1925 Hamilton, Montana
Died	October 26, 2011(2011-10-26) (aged 86)
Nationality	American
Fields	Mycology
Institutions	University of Arizona
Alma mater	State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry
Doctoral advisor	Josiah Lowe
Notable awards	Distinguished Mycologist Award

Robert Lee Gilbertson (January 15, 1925 – October 26, 2011) was a distinguished American mycologist and educator. He was a faculty member at University of Arizona for 26 years until his retirement from teaching in 1995; he was a Professor Emeritus at U of A until his death on October 26, 2011 in Tucson, Arizona. 2011. He held concurrent positions as Plant Pathologist, Agricultural Experiment Station, University of Arizona (1967–95) for a project Research on wood-rotting fungi and other fungi associated with southwestern plants and was collaborator and consultant with Center for Forest Mycology Research, US Forest Service, Forest Products Laboratory,Madison, Wisconsin (1957–1981).

Robert Lee Gilbertson 1926-2011 Presentation by Meredith Blackwell

Gil was born on January 15, 1925, in Hamilton, Montana to George and Eula Norris Gilbertson. He had one sibling, George N. Gilbertson. They grew up in Missoula. Gil shared his youthful adventures with a best friend whose aunt ran a bordello. He also had fond memories of his Uncle Nick, a railroad man for whom one of his grandsons was named. Gil, always a reader, enjoyed the memoir A River Runs Through It and Other Stories not only for its literary merits, but also because it was set in the Missoula of his youth. Norman Maclean mentioned many people and places Gil had known. Also, the narrator had a younger brother who died young, and this reminded Gil of his younger brother, George, who died as a young man of a brain tumor. Gil hated that surgery had changed his brother completely but had not cured him. Growing up in Missoula, Gil also had known several men, one the father of a friend, who died in the 1949 Mann Gulch fire described in another Maclean book, Young Men and Fire.

Gil graduated from Missoula Central High School in 1942 soon after the US entered WWII. He had to wait until his January birthday when he became 18 when he could enlist in the Army. He was sent to Europe, where he served as a combat infantryman in the U. S. Army from 1943-1946. Gil received the European Theater Campaign Medal with two battle stars, a Bronze Star, and a Purple Heart.

On December 13, 1984 Gil wrote about how he earned the Purple Heart.

… 40 years ago today I was a 19 year old combat infantryman in C. F, 309th Inf.