Gerry Rohde, stockroom manager and laboratory safety officer in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has died. He was 55.
Rohde had worked at the university since 1993. He first worked in the stockroom in the Department of Chemistry, then transferred to the biology department in 1997. He wrote a safety spotlight for the biology newsletter and served as the department liaison with the university’s Environmental Health & Safety department.
“Gerry was a unique individual who touched everyone’s lives in the department,” said Kathryn Miller, professor and chair of biology. “In his role, he helped to make sure that everyone had what they needed to do their research. He oversaw the flow of purchase orders, receiving, and stockroom supplies for 33 faculty members and their laboratory groups. The job suited him very well, and he always had a joke or a smile when you visited the stockroom.”
“Gerry was a visible and vibrant presence, and he will be sorely missed,” she said.
Rohde also was known around campus and across the area as the evening host of St. Louis Public Radio, KWMU FM 90.7, where he had worked in various on-air capacities since 1985. For more than 20 years, Rohde had managed programming weeknights from 7-11 p.m.
Rohde was raised in Bremen, Germany, and first came to the United States as a high school exchange student in 1978. He returned in 1983 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in German and in mathematics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, and he had lived in St. Louis since then.
Rohde is survived by his sister, Geena Eaton of Overland, Mo.
Learn more about Rohde in his Washington People profile, published in April.