In a previous incarnation, I was the media relations manager at the University of South Florida. Part of my job was to make the rounds of the different colleges to explain our public relations and communications mission and encourage faculty to partner for the greater good. As in, let’s not hide our achievement lights under academic bushels. Let’s be pro-active about all the good stuff going on out here. The media and taxpayers need to know.
Not every sortie was fun. Too many in academia seem on the lam from the real world. They can’t get away from scholar-speak.
And then there was Mike Kovac.
Dr. Michael Kovac served as the dean of USF’s College of Engineering from 1986 to 1999. He also served as interim provost (1994-95), co-founded the Center for Entrepreneurship and founded USF’s Nano-technology Research and Education Center. He died last week at 70.
Kovac was “smartest-guy-in-the-room” smart. But it was more than brilliance in the abstract. He was practical-application smart. He had real-world experience with RCA Labs in Princeton, N.J., and started his own tech company in Waltham, Mass. He was an inventor, and he was a key catalyst behind Florida’s High Tech Corridor. Not everyone who is smart is an energetic, innovative visionary.
And not everyone who is smart–especially among the slide-rule set–is also funny. Mike Kovac loved a good–as well as a really bad–pun more than most. He was unique, and USF will always be in his debt.