Former Healthcare Executives Pledge Support to Duquesne Program
$1.5 million gift will sustain program that helps students with special needs
December 20, 2003
Bob Gussin says his childhood in a Pittsburgh suburb was a typical small town life. It was a life he thought he'd never leave.
Then, his plans changed.
Gussin, 68, earned a pharmacy degree at Duquesne University then went on to have a successful career in medical research, ultimately serving as chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson. Though his career took him away from Western Pennsylvania, he has never forgotten his roots.
Gussin and his wife, Dr. Patricia Gussin, a pediatrician, family physician and retired vice president of worldwide research and development at Johnson & Johnson's Consumer Pharmaceuticals Division, have given Duquesne's Spiritan Division $1.5 million.
"A lot of kids get pushed aside, they get lost in the first two years," said Bob Gussin. "The Spiritan Division is a helping hand.'
Since 1997, Duquesne's Spiritan Division has offered educational and personal development programs to students with special financial, educational or physical needs through individualized advising, counseling, tutoring and other educational programs and services. The Spiritan Division helps effect the successful transitions of first-year students into the life of the university and assists in the retention of other university students who are at-risk for dismissal.
"Duquesne's Spiritan Division has helped countless numbers of young people who have gone on to have successful careers," said Charles J. Dougherty, Duquesne's president. "We're grateful to Dr. Bob and Dr. Pat Gussin for helping us to continue this very important work."
The Gussins decided to fund the Spiritan Division for two reasons: they have had family members go through the program and they believe the Spiritan Division's work makes a tremendous difference in the lives of young people who may never have had the opportunity to successfully complete their education.
Bob Gussin was born in the Glendale neighborhood of Scott Township, where he played football on lawn of Scott Township High School, delivered newspapers, caddied at Chartiers County Club and worked as a stock boy at Krogers.
"We didn't even have a post office," he said, of the small town. "Everybody knew everybody."
He earned a pharmacy degree from Duquesne in 1959 and a graduate pharmacy degree in 1961. He went on the University of Michigan where he earned a doctor of pharmacy degree and the State University of New York at Syracuse where he completed a post-doctoral fellowship. He began his career as director of cardio-renal therapeutics at Lederle Laboratories. He then moved on to Johnson & Johnson in 1974 as executive director of research at the company's McNeil Laboratories. He was promoted to the position of vice president of scientific affairs, then in 1986, assumed the positions of corporate vice president of science and technology and chief scientific officer of Johnson & Johnson. He retired in 2001.
Pat Gussin received a Bachelor of Arts from Aquinas College and her medical degree from Wayne State University School of Medicine and an M.B.A in finance from Columbia University. She did her residency training in both pediatrics and flexible and transitional medicine at the University of South Florida College of Medicine. She is the retired vice president of worldwide research and development at Johnson & Johnson's Consumer Pharmaceuticals division and is the former vice president of research and development at McNeil Consumer Healthcare.
The Gussins, who have been married for 23 years, have seven children and 16 grandchildren. They have taken on new interests in retirement, including writing fiction, starting a publishing company and overseeing their vineyards and wineries in New Zealand. They also volunteer in a low-income senior clinic in Sarasota, Fla..
They travel to Pittsburgh from their homes in Florida and New York about five or six times a year to visit family – Bob Gussin's sister lives in Squirrel Hill and his stepmother lives in East Liberty – and to attend meetings at Duquesne, where Bob Gussin is on the board.
