Arthur H. Doerr

Arthur H. “Art” Doerr, born on August 28, 1924, has died.

Doerr grew up in the small Midwestern town of Johnston City, Illinois, just southeast of St. Louis. He received his undergraduate degree from Southern Illinois University. His college education was interrupted, as with so many other geographers of his generation, by military service during the Second World War. Doerr was commissioned as a second lieutenant and served as a navigator-radar operator in the 2nd B-25 combat Weather Squadron in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations. After receiving an honorable discharge in 1946, he returned to the United States and earned a Ph.D. from Northwestern University.

Doerr served on the faculties of Northwestern University and the University of Oklahoma before joining the University of West Florida (UWF) as Professor and Vice President of Academic Affairs in 1970, where he hired a succession of Oklahoma geographers to anchor a program, leading to the establishment of a new department. He had previously served as Chair of the Geography Department and Dean of the Graduate College at the University of Oklahoma.

Doerr retired from UWF in 1992. During his career he also served in a number of roles outside the university setting, including as an intelligence expert for the U.S. Army, as a geologist for the Oklahoma Geological Survey, and as Cartographer and Field Team Chief for the Rural Land Classification Program of Puerto Rico. Doerr also served as Fulbright Professor at the University of the Philippines. Doerr retired from UWF as Professor of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and the Anna Boland Professor of Geography. Those wishing to memorialize his passing may make contributions to the Arthur H. Doerr Faculty Scholarship Fund at the University of West Florida Foundation.

Arthur H. Doerr (Necrology). 2011. AAG Newsletter 46(11): 23.