Bob Glim, a longtime Fresno State agricultural department faculty member and Ag One Foundation ambassador, passed away on Saturday, Nov. 11, in Fresno. He would have been 102 years old Wednesday, Nov. 22.
Glim began his 30-year Fresno State teaching career in 1948 when the ag campus was located at Hammer Field near the Fresno Yosemite International Airport. He taught classes that ranged from animal husbandry to agricultural economics. He also served as a rodeo team adviser and helped oversee the campus feed mill, FFA campus field day and Big Fresno Fair judging competitions. He was a longtime Fresno State football and basketball season ticket holder and a West Coast Relays track and field official.
Glim was the last living member of the “Twelve Disciples” faculty hired by Gene Egan, then-dean of the agricultural college, that set the foundation for today’s Jordan College of Agricultural Sciences and Technology curriculum. Glim retired in 1979 as assistant dean and shifted his focus to assisting the Ag One Foundation in its mission to support students and programs.
Glim helped foster a relationship with his 49er RV Club friends Bud, Dee and Lowell Jordan that helped inspire a $29.4 million donation in 2009 that made the Jordan Agricultural Research Center possible. The Jordan family’s first donations to Fresno State were for agricultural scholarships and were initiated by Glim’s campfire presentation on the rich agricultural academic programs, farm activities and student-made farm products.
Glim’s noteworthy professional accomplishments included a three-year USAID modern agriculture teaching tour in Sudan and other missions sharing agriculture information in the Central Valley, Mexico and Europe.
Born in 1915 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Glim grew up in Kerman for part of his youth and got an early start in the vineyard industry. His father, Rev. Olof Nelson Glim, purchased a 20-acre plot in 1906 and later became a founding member of Sun-Maid Raisin Co-operative. After graduating from Kerman High School, Bob Glim attended Fresno State for two years before he finished his undergraduate degree from UC Davis, where he also later earned his master’s degree and teaching credential.
Before he joined the faculty at Fresno State, he started the Woodlake High School vocational agriculture department and taught there for eight years.
“Professor Glim was one of Ag One’s most enthusiastic volunteers and was a cherished friend who will be missed,” said Alcidia Freitas Gomes, senior director of Ag One. “His impact at Fresno State will be remembered through the legion of students he’s taught and by helping to inspire the remarkable gift from the Jordan family.”
He is survived by his wife of 47 years, Dorothy; five children (Alice, Margaret, Roberta, David and Mary) from his first marriage to Imogene Thistle, who died in 1966; Dorothy’s son (Len Schwartz); 13 grandchildren; 18 great-grandchildren; and two great-great-grandchildren.
A celebration of life ceremony was held Nov. 17 at Campus Bible Church (4710 N. Maple Ave.). Donations honoring Glim should be made to the Fresno State’s Robert J. Glim Ag One Endowment or Jaron Ministries.
