Necrology

Robert Michael Regan '57

Dec. 14, 1936-Jun. 3, 2021

Robert Michael Regan ’57, GP’22 died in Easton, Md., on June 3, 2021. Born in Malone, N.Y., on Dec. 14, 1936, he grew up in Fort Covington, N.Y., and came to Hamilton from Fort Covington High School. On the Hill, he majored in philosophy and history and was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.

What drew Bob to Hamilton was the opportunity to play ice hockey, and he was on the team all four years, serving as captain as a senior. He was on the baseball team both as a freshman and sophomore, was the College’s intramural chairman as a junior, and was a member of the Block “H” Club throughout his tenure on the Hill. Vice president of his class as a sophomore, he was also a member of Nous Onze as a senior.

A very important event happened during his junior year. At Skidmore College one weekend, Bob met Carolyn Hildenbrand on a blind date. According to family lore, she only chose to go at the last minute and at the urging of a friend. They were married on Aug. 31, 1957. They had two children.

After graduating Hamilton on a scholarship from Union Carbide, Bob went to work for the Carbide’s national carbon division in New York City. He planned to take the job while he figured out what he wanted to do in life. One option was to become a lawyer like his father and specialize in corporate law, but he decided against it. As he recalled in 2007 in his 40th reunion yearbook: “the business world was not for me.” In 1960, he began medical school at George Washington University (GWU). Four years of medical school led to a three-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology at GWU, followed by service in the Army.

In 1970, he joined a private practice in Manassas, Va., and over the next 24 years watched it grow from a two-man partnership to one with seven specialists. Retiring from medical practice in 1994 after delivering roughly 6,000 babies, Bob became the chief executive officer of the non-profit Prince William Health System. He had previously been a trustee of the system’s hospital dating to 1981, and chair of the Prince William Hospital Corp. since 1984. During his tenure, the system expanded the Prince William Wellness Center and the hospital’s emergency department and opened the hospital’s Occupational Medical Center, among other new services. 

In retirement Bob enjoyed reading history, catch-and-release tarpon fishing, and golf. He and Carolyn also took their children and grandchildren on trips to Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands, India, and Eastern Europe. He volunteered at a free health clinic in Manassas, staying active in several healthcare-related associations and service organizations.

Bob was a dedicated alumnus of the College, volunteering for capital campaigns, as a member of his reunion gift committee, as an officer of the Alumni Association, and as a volunteer with the Career Center. He donated generously to the Hamilton Fund and to capital campaigns.

His engagement with the College was surely prompted by his own experience on the Hill. In his 40th and 50th reunion yearbooks, he recalled with pleasure his first-year English literature class, taught by Dean Winton Tolles, and his course on Russian history with Professor William Starnes. He called hockey coach Greg Batt “able and innovative” and “a father figure.” But his greatest pleasure at Hamilton was “meeting Carolyn.” He wrote: the College “significantly helped with badly needed confidence building and led to a lifetime of loving to read and learn.” Hamilton, “took a sixteen-year-old boy from a village in the North Country and exposed him to a broader, more stimulating world.” He remembered fondly his interviewer saying, when he applied to medical school armed only with a letter of recommendation from a close friend of Dr. Hildenbrand (his father-in-law) and a degree from Hamilton: “What more do you need than that?”

Robert M. Regan is survived by his wife, son, and daughter, as well as granddaughter Emma Mae Regan ’22.  

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