Robert P. Uhl ’39

Bob died June 14, 2013, in Atlanta, the home of the business he started in 1971, Sunlighting Lamp & Shade Center.

Bob credited “the total Princeton experience” as giving him “the necessary confidence for my career switch at age 55.” His first career was with the Carpenter Steel Co., where he started as a cub salesman in 1946 and rose to vice president. “Corporate life cast me in the role of a troubleshooter. The dividend of moving 28 times was to gain friends all over the country,” he said.

After graduation, Bob attended Harvard Business School (“thanks to my engineering background”). He served in the Navy during World War II as a lieutenant on board the USS Lexington.

His favorite Princeton memory? “Learning squash as a sophomore and making the varsity as a senior.” Bob’s sport then became golf, which he played until age 93, when he suffered a career-ending broken wrist.

Bob always ranked his family as No. 1. He and his wife, Alice Laubach Uhl, whom he married in 1941, had four children. Alice and two of their children predeceased Bob. He is survived by two children; two grandsons; a sister; and his “kid” brother, Dick Uhl ’39, with whom he shared his four years at Princeton.