Obituary
Robert Peirce, EEN engineer, 72
Robert B. Peirce, former chief engineer of the Eastern Educational Network, a forerunner of American Public Television, died Oct. 1 in Dedham, Mass., after a six-year battle with prostate cancer. He was 72.
Carolee Brockmann Gravina, now a college adviser in Allendale, N.J., worked with Peirce in the 1980s at EEN, the first interconnection of pubTV stations, which shared programs by microwave links and shipments of 2-inch videotape. “Bob was fun to work with — he had a lot of energy and a great sense of humor,” Gravina said. “When I became operations manager, he encouraged me to try to go a little more technical and he was always willing to explain why we needed to do the things we did. He was very good at explaining technology to lay people.”
Peirce spent his career in television and postproduction in the Boston area and co-founded Pisces Productions there. “I accompanied him on a few trips to [National Association of Broadcasters] conventions,” his son Garry told Current, “where I was always amazed how in a sea of people on the other side of the country we couldn’t walk through the hall very far without him running into people he knew.”
Garry recalls the Halloween “when through some contact Dad was allowed to take home and wear an ‘official’ Big Bird costume, which stopped a large amount of passing traffic.”
Robert Peirce was born in 1939 in Upper Darby, Pa. He graduated from the University of Delaware with an electrical engineering degree and did grad studies at Queens University in Canada and Northeastern University.
He is survived by wife Angela Kane; son Robert Peirce and wife Liz; daughter Lisa Boyle and husband John; four stepchildren and nine grandchildren.
His funeral took place Oct. 6 in Dedham. The family suggests donations to the Prostate Cancer Research Fund, c/o Dr. Glenn Bubley, Room 449, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, 330 Brookline Ave., Boston, MA 02215.
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