Person
Biography
Bob Gittleman was a retired teacher and President of Exec-U-Service Associates in Princeton, NJ, a management training firm. Born in New York City, he had a transformative experience as a teenager in 1945 at Camp Rising Sun in New York’s Hudson Valley, where he was first exposed to the arts scene in this region and became an ardent fan. He was a longtime volunteer at Tanglewood, where he was known as a devoted ambassador who received the Carrie L. Peace Spirit of Volunteering Award in 2017. Together with his wife Steffie, he sponsored students in The School at Jacob’s Pillow for the past decade. The Gittlemans were profiled in a 2017 Pillow newsletter, when he was quoted as saying, “The Pillow has really become family.” After enthusiastically taking part in Festival activities at the beginning of the 2018 season, his health deteriorated rapidly and he died in August at the age of 87.
Source of Biography
Written by Norton Owen for Jacob's Pillow Remembers.