Robert Roy Jorgensen ’50 died on July 17, 2008, in Fullerton, California.

He was born on January 30, 1927, in Cambridge, Mass., and prepared for college at Groton High School, Laurence Academy and Mount Hermon School. Before college, he served as seaman first class in the Navy, where he was a radio operator assigned to a minesweeper stationed in San Diego. He was a member of Sigma Nu fraternity at Bowdoin, where in 1949, he was awarded the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Cup given by Alpha Delta Phi fraternity to an underclassman “whose vision, humanity and courage have made Bowdoin a better college.” After graduating, he undertook an independent study of American labor by creating a false identity and spending time as a laborer in order, as he wrote, “to share the worker’s life as an equal and be treated as such.” He followed that with two years studying plant management at Harvard University School of Business. He worked for many years in various capacities as a manager for Crown Zellerbach Corp., including four years living in the Netherlands as the company started a new joint venture manufacturing operation. In the late 1970s, he ran an employment business in southern California, writing resumes and giving employment counseling to young people of African descent. He also was involved in literacy programs, and served as an elder in First Presbyterian Church of Fullerton, Cal. He is survived by Lillian Jean Barrett Jorgensen, his wife of 50 years; two sons, Michael Jorgensen and Patrick Jorgensen; a daughter, Nancy, and four grandchildren.