Bob Guertin, 69; experimental physicist led Tufts graduate school

“Bob Guertin was a class act,’’ Lawrence S. Bacow, the president of Tufts, said when he stepped to the microphone Tuesday at a gathering in the university’s Granoff Music Center to celebrate Dr. Guertin’s life.

Dr. Guertin, who took over leading the Tufts Graduate School of Arts and Sciences when the dean’s job was part time and spent 11 years turning the school into a significant part of the university community, died of cancer June 12 at Massachusetts General Hospital. He was 69 and lived in Boston.

“He helped to truly elevate graduate education during his time here,’’ Bacow said yesterday in an interview.

At 6 feet 4 inches, with white hair and a bushy moustache, Dr. Guertin “was a very handsome guy with a twinkle in his eye,’’ said Rob Hollister, who succeeded him as arts and sciences dean. “We always used to comment that Bob was the dean from central casting. But I think of him as a stonemason. What he really left was a very strong foundation for continuing growth.’’

Part of his legacy, colleagues said, can be seen in the university’s Science and Technology Center, an 89,000-square-foot research facility that Dr. Guertin helped shepherd into existence by immersing himself in its design and construction, after first getting funding in place.

But his time at Tufts was just as memorable for the way he dealt with everyone from staff to students and faculty, said colleagues and those who spoke at Tuesday’s gathering, not least because he was fond of bringing his dog to the office most days, a touch that put many at ease.

“What happens to a lot of people when they become dean is that they lose a lot of their faculty friends,’’ Bacow said. “Bob never lost a friend. He had this amazing ability to tell people no at times, but nobody could get angry at him. That’s a wonderful attribute in a dean.’’

Hollister said Dr. Guertin set an example by supporting and listening to his staff and even ended his last annual report by saluting his subordinates.

“And his passionate advocacy of, and mentoring of, students was just legendary,’’ Hollister said. “It wasn’t just that he was really good at both of those things. It’s the stuff of leadership that has a lasting impact on the culture of the institution. He vibrated joy in the work that he was doing, and it was contagious.’’

Though Dr. Guertin was a physicist whose work in condensed matter was on a level few could grasp, he strolled easily through all walks of life.

“He was just as comfortable talking with Nobel physicists as he was sharing a beer with the campus chief of police and enjoying a kind of rowdy humor,’’ said his wife, June Mamana Guertin. “We had an annual party, and about 65 people would attend in our small apartment. A lot of our friends used to comment that it was the only party you could go to and run into a Nobel Prize winner and, on the other hand, the guy down the street.’’

Robert Powell Guertin was born in Trenton, N.J., and grew up in Winnetka, Ill., the younger of two brothers.

He graduated in 1961 with a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in Hartford and received a master’s in physics in 1963 from Wesleyan University in Connecticut. Dr. Guertin began teaching physics at Tufts soon after he received a doctorate from the University of Rochester in New York in 1969.

His experimental physics work, which produced 130 publications and four books, took him to the Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory at MIT and the National High Magnetic Laboratory at Florida State University. He also conducted research at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and at the University of California at San Diego.

Dr. Guertin’s studies involved measuring the properties of different materials in conditions such as high magnetic fields, high pressure, and low temperatures. Early in his career, he created a technique for measuring the magnetic properties of materials at high pressure and used that approach in decades of research.

He spent his academic career of more than 40 years at Tufts, serving as dean from 1985 to 1996. He also formerly chaired the board of governors of the University Press of New England.

At the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, “he took it from a much earlier stage of development and really notched up a couple of levels the scale and the quality and the competitiveness,’’ said Hollister, who is dean of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts.

“He became dean in 1985, and, at that point, it was a part-time position, and he had one full-time staff,’’ Hollister said. “In his 11 years at the helm, the total enrollment in the graduate programs in the arts and sciences grew over 50 percent, the revenues quadrupled. It was a period of developing major new programs.’’

Nevertheless, Hollister said, “if Bob were part of this conversation,’’ he would be quick to deflect credit to others.

At Tuesday’s gathering, John McDonald, a professor of music at Tufts, performed “Guertin’s Arpeggiary,’’ which he composed to honor his colleague.

“This brief homage aims to create a bracing world of arpeggios that is an imagined parallel to Bob’s own ‘world,’ ’’ McDonald wrote in a program note. “I often observed him walking the campus seemingly lost in thought, pleasantly and nobly so.’’

In the gentle dissonance of chords and pauses in McDonald’s playing, listeners could, for a moment, hear the sometimes complex thoughts of a physicist and dean.

A capable pianist, Dr. Guertin subscribed to the same seat in the first balcony for 30 years of Boston Symphony Orchestra performances and also loved jazz. At 16, he and some friends went into Chicago, unbeknownst to their parents, and slipped into a club where they heard a musician people were calling Duke.

“He thought this man named Duke was the greatest thing he ever heard,’’ his wife said. “He had no idea this man was famous and tells me he was sitting 6 feet away. It left a lasting impression, and the man, of course, was Duke Ellington.’’

In addition to his wife, Dr. Guertin leaves two daughters from his first marriage to the former Margaret Eipper, Lynn Kirby of Philadelphia and Laura Impemba of Burlington; a brother, Tom of Palm Coast, Fla.; and four grandchildren.

A private service will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday at the St. Botolph Club in Boston.