Robert J. Dodds, III
Bob Leich remembers: “Bob’s father was in the 9th U.S Army in WWII as was my father who served as the Air Officer under General Simpson. The 9th was across the Elbe River and would have been the unit to liberate Berlin, but were recalled back across the river as FDR had agreed at Yalta that the Russians would take Berlin. None in command could believe it at the time, but they waited there for the Russians. In 1955 our parents took us to the only reunion of the 9th Army, which was held at the Treadway Inn at Old Coonamessett in Falmouth on Cape Cod. Bob and I were the only two youngsters there as I recall, and were the same age which would have been 12. To keep us occupied one day Bob’s father took the two of us fishing and on another afternoon my mother took us sailing. I posted one of the pictures from the fishing outing on this website in the lead up to our 50th Reunion. If you go to ‘Photo Galleries’ and scroll down the the bottom you’ll see a collage with the caption “The Way We Were.” Bob is at the right in the photo with his father and me. (I’m the one in the Yale 19?? tee shirt…hopeful even then).“Bob and I looked one another up freshman year at Yale and recalled these outings. I regret that we didn’t stay in closer contact after graduation for it is obvious that he had a most distinguished career. I know he will be missed by family and friends and share with them the above story from his childhood.”
Robert J. Dodds III, a prominent trust and estates lawyer, died on September 10, 2019, in his home. He had been an associate and then a partner of Reed Smith Shaw & McClay in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a counsel and then a partner of Rose, Kohl & Davenport, Ltd. and its successor firms in Santa Fe, New Mexico. At his death he was the proprietor of the firm Davenport & Dodds.
Dodds was born in San Antonio, Texas, on September 19, 1943, the son of Robert J. Dodds Jr. and Kathryn Bechman Dodds. Kathryn Dodds died September 25, 1943. After the war his father married Patricia Colbert, who adopted him. Dodds attended Shady Side Academy in Pittsburgh, the Choate School (1961), Yale University (1965), and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law (1969).
During his time in Pittsburgh, he served on a number of for-profit and nonprofit boards: Air Tool Parts & Service Company (director), Davison Sand & Gravel Company (director), Carnegie Museum of Art (term trustee), Carnegie Mellon University (term trustee), the Westmoreland Museum of Art (director), Pittsburgh Plan for Art, later to become the Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery (director and chairman), the Homewood Cemetery (director and president), YMCA of Pittsburgh (director), the Western Pennsylvania Hospital (trustee), the West Penn Hospital Foundation (director and chairman), the Pittsburgh Athletic Association (director), and the Museums Panel of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (member). His club memberships included, in Pittsburgh: the Duquesne Club, the Pittsburgh Golf Club, Fox Chapel Golf Club, the Pittsburgh Athletic Association, the Harvard Yale Princeton Club, and Rolling Rock Club; and in New York: the Yale Club of New York and the University of Pennsylvania Club.
Dodds is survived by his wife, D. J. Dodds of Santa Fe and two sons, Zachary B. Dodds, a professor of computer science at Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, California; and Seth D. Dodds, an associate professor in hand and upper extremity surgery in the Department of Orthopedics at the University of Miami School of Medicine. He is also survived by four grandchildren.
—Submitted by the family.