Last updated 10/13/2021
Bob is currently as busy as he was as a full-time professor at USC. Because staying intellectually involved in life has been an important part of his retirement, he has remained an active part of the community as Chairman Emeritus on the Board of Trustees at Pomona College; Member and Chair on the Board of Overseers for the Claremont University Consortium; Member of the Board of Directors of the Ralph M. Parson’s Foundation, the Good Hope Medical Foundation, the L.A. Care Health Plan, Mount San Antonio Gardens and the Huntington Medical Research Institute; and occasionally lectures for the USC Emeriti Center College. He was also recently honored by the Claremont Colleges when their student health center was named after him. Aside from his community contributions, he now has time for woodworking projects, tennis, and golf and has discovered a hidden talent for manufacturing his own homemade olive oil. He wouldn’t suggest buying it though because he would have to market it for about $1,000 an ounce!
Dr. Robert Tranquada came to USC in 1959 as Assistant Professor of Medicine and Fellow in Endocrinology and Diabetes at the School of Medicine working his way up to the position of Medical Director of the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center and Associate Dean where he remained from 1969 to 1976. After leaving the school for a short time, he returned in 1986 as the Dean of Medicine at USC. He continued to work with the school and was appointed Norman Topping/National Medical Enterprises Professor of Medicine and Public Policy from 1992 to 1997. He then became the Director of the Health Administration Program at the School of Public Administration where he worked until he retired in 1997. Included among his honors are: Member, Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, 1983; Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1984; Diabetes Association of Southern California, Advocate of the Year, 1996; Elaine Stevely Hoffman award, University of Southern California School of Medicine, 1997.
“Be prepared to be busy! If you don’t want to give up your work once you leave the University, take some time to think about how you want to spend your retirement and what you can still do to remain active in your field.” Robert Tranquada, 2006