2013 Annual Report - Jesus College - University of Cambridge

154 OBITUARIES I Jesus College Annual Report 2013
HELLER, Robert Gordon Barry (1952) died on 28 August 2012 aged 80.
Bob Heller was born on 10 June 1932 in London. Educated at Christ’s Hospital,
Horsham, after National Service, he came up to Jesus in 1952 to read History. Whilst at
Jesus he regularly played for the First Rugby XV, wrote verses for Footlights and articles
for Varsity all whilst, seemingly effortlessly, shining at Tripos. He graduated BA 1955.
Despite the reservations of Mr Fisher, who thought he could do better, he joined the
Financial Times working as Diary Editor and US Correspondent from 1955-1963.
He then moved to be Business Editor of The Observer for two years before joining
Haymarket Publishing. Under Haymarket he was the editor of Management Today for
twenty-four years. He wrote numerous management books including: The Naked Manager
(1971); The Super Managers (1984); The Pocket Manager (1986); The Best of Robert Heller (1989);
Culture Shock: The Office Revolution (1990); The Quality Makers (1993); In Search of European
Excellence (1997); and Goldfinger (1998). He had a great interest in contemporary art and,
with his partner, Angela Flowers, helped develop and support the gallery she founded in
1970. A keen supporter of Jesus and Cambridge he served on the Finance Committee of
the former and the Appointments Board of the later. He was diagnosed with Parkinson’s
disease in 2002 but his enthusiasms for Rugby, fine wines, music and art continued for
another 10 years.
He married Lois Ruth Malnick in 1955 and they had one son and two daughters
including Jane Heller (1981). The marriage was dissolved in 1999. He married Angela
Flowers in 2003 and they had a daughter.
INGRAM, Richard Newstead (1958) died on 11 April 2013 aged 75.
Dick Ingram was born on 20 March 1938 in Loughborough where he went on to attend
the local grammar school. Following National Service in Bomber Command servicing
radar systems in ‘V’ bombers, he came up to Jesus in 1958 to read Mechanical Sciences.
Whilst at Jesus he made lifelong friends with four of his fellow Jesuan engineers;
recounts of trips he and these friends undertook entitled In the Footsteps of the
Innocents Abroad and Adventures in Canada and the US can be found in the Jesuan
library. After graduating BA 1961, his early career, with Schlumberger, saw him posted
around the world, including to Libya where he carried out seismic geological surveys in
the desert. On returning to the UK he became Operational Research Assistant at Richard
Thomas and Baldwin. In 1967, he joined Rover and he was to remain with motor
manufacturing for the rest of his career; retiring in 1999 as Business Director of Jaguar,
by then part of Ford. In Some Episodes and Incidents in a Working Life, also in the
Jesuan library, he gives a fascinating personal account of a career in British Industry over
forty years of great change.
Throughout his life he was actively involved in local community and charity work.
He was: a founder member of the local Shelter group; elected to Solihull Council,
serving on several committees; and chairman of First Solihull Scout Group for 20 years.
In his retirement, he was appointed by the Lord Chancellor to assist in the recruitment
of new magistrates and subsequently volunteered to serve on the Youth Offenders Panel
as part of the ‘Restorative Justice Scheme’. He initiated funding by Jaguar for Sustrans to
construct links into Jaguar plants from the National Cycle Network and he encouraged
Jaguar to establish Jaguar Wood, a walnut plantation in the new National Forest, to
provide the interior veneer for Jaguar cars.
He and his wife, Judy, had two sons.