December 2009

FAREWELL TO BOB AND JAN Robert E. Brady, our Registrar and Secretary General for eleven years, is retiring on December 31, 2009. Bob and Jan went to rival Catholic High Schools in Connecticut. When he was a Senior and she was a Junior, he saw her at a basketball game. "He called me on the evening before my 'Sweet Sixteen' Birthday," said Jan, "so he tells everyone that he's known me since I was 15! Our first date was on April 7, 1956, and it was indeed love at first sight." They went steady from that day on and never looked back.

Dr. Robert Brady and Jan Brady Photo by Dr. Galeone

They wrote to each other every day while Jan attended the College of New Rochelle in New York, and Bob was at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts where he earned his B.S. degree in Biology in 1960. They were married five weeks after Jan graduated in 1961.

To make ends meet while Bob attended Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston, Bob worked various part-time jobs: as a ham sniffer, an automotive warehouse stocker, a blood bank test tube washer, a janitor and a dental hygienist. Jan was an editorial assistant for a medical journal, the Review of Allergy and Applied Immunology, and a Special Ed teacher. Shortly after Bob graduated, Jan gave birth to their second daughter.

Bob was accepted for a two-year U.S. Army Commission. By the time he returned from a tour in Vietnam in 1969 with the 82nd Airborne Division, he had decided an Army career was for him.

Following his residency in Removable Prosthodontics Bob was certified by the American Board of Prosthodontics. He attended the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, the Center for Creative Leadership, and the J.F.K. School of Government at Harvard University.

Although he loved the military Bob also enjoyed being involved in the communities in which he, Jan and their four children lived. He served on the PTA board in San Antonio and was the President of the PTA board in Tacoma, Washington. He was also on the St. John's Church Council in Tacoma, volunteering on their Sunday Breakfast Club team and helping with Parish duties.

Because of Bob's military career Bob and Jan have lived in Boston, MA; Ft. Rucker, AL; San Antonio, TX (twice); Tacoma, WA; Ft. Leavenworth, KS; Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Washington, D.C. (twice); Ft. Bragg, NC; Bad Kreuznach, Germany; and Heidelberg, Germany.

The Selection Board's decision to make Bob a General Officer was made on December 12, 1988, the tenth anniversary of the passing of Bob's father. Their lives changed forever: much of the time they were stationed in Heidelberg, Germany; they had the privilege of meeting and consorting with political and military VIPs; they were now role models who had to be always aware of their actions. It was the most exciting time of their married life. The time flew.

The next great change in their lives came on January 1, 1999, when Bob accepted the position of Secretary General of the International College of Dentists and Registrar of the USA Section. Through the ICD Bob and Jan experienced a more intimate look of many of the countries they had seen in the military, for now they saw them through the eyes of each nation's citizens in a way in which the average tourist would never be privy. In the U.S., they hosted many dinners at their charming home for their new ICD friends, and at meetings, Jan would always enhance the hospitality suite with photos of ICD colleagues and their families.

The most rewarding part of their relationship to the ICD has been the life-time friends they made here and in countries throughout the world. "They are," said Bob, "good, genuine, gracious friends who we were fortunate to have met. They are the jewels in the crown of ICD Fellowship. We are blessed to have been associated with such an august group."

The thought of retirement is bittersweet for Bob, as it is for us. We are happy that he will have more time to spend with Jan, his children Pamela, Suzanne, Carole and Michael, their spouses, and grandchildren. (Including sons- and daughter-in-law and 11 grandchildren there are now twenty-one of them.) Happy that he can enjoy more fully his time at their beach home on the Maryland shore, and better analyze the Washington Redskins' strategy. But we will sorely miss his leadership, his charm, his fairness, his sense of humor and, most of all, his friendship. So, congratulations, General. And thank you for all you've done.

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