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We have received notice that Richard Pearl passed away in December 2024.
Richard taught undergraduate business courses in Okinawa for the Asian Division from 2009 to 2015. He was also an incredibly talented musician.
We will post the obituary when it is available.
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Robert Walker
For the last several years, Richard had been quite ill from kidney failure. He was back and forth on quite a few medications and was one step away from weekly dialysis. He was still living and teaching in Vietnam (Hanoi) but returned to the US every few months. He has a very kind brother who is a doctor and lives in Ft Lauderdale. I live half the year about an hour away in Stuart. He came to my house and visited with myself and my wife, Annie Kao. I visited him in Lauderdale with his brother and his wife. His spirits were always good but he knew he was ill. I'm not certain of his age, somewhere in the low to mid 80s? He died in the hospital in Ft Lauderdale.
For several years, when we were both in Okinawa, we traveled frequently to Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. He had a tremendous sense of humor and was a gifted musician. He was well-known as part of a band in Phnom Penh and everyone loved him. I loved him too. He was a fine - in many ways, brilliant - man. My wife and I will both miss him terribly.
Robert Walker, Stuart Florida and Kailua Hawaii (UMUC in Okinawa, Korea, Germany and Italy from approx 2000 to 2015.
Guy Moyer
Something remakable about Richard is that he not only was a skilled musician, but, as I recall, he taught himself to play the banjo. He then used that skill and his natural performing talent to "front" for some pretty big names, like Pat Paulsen of Smothers Brothers fame.
Douglas Dallier
I'll never forget the time I first met Richard. I was teaching in the late evening on Kadena Air Base in Okinawa (classes ended at 10:45 p.m.). To set the scene, we had just finished and I was packing up my materials after chatting with a few students. The education center was largely deserted. In an otherwise silent building, I suddenly heard the unmistakably distinct sound of a banjo, quite noticeable and somewhat close by. I walked around looking in rooms for the source and in one there stood Richard- one leg propped up on a chair playing the banjo with about four or five students hanging out, enjoying the jam session. It was an unforgettable moment that was only made possible by the irreplaceable person that was Richard. As one of my other colleagues mentioned, he was as much a deep thinker as he was a wonderfully affable colleague and profoundly skilled musician.He encouraged me to travel throughout Asia during my time with UMUC, and I followed his advice and travel recommendations, which were always superb (except for the time that he encouraged me to ride a tuk-tuk from the airport in Phnom Penh to the Mekong riverfront for the authenticity of the experience, which took me nearly an hour in miserably sweltering heat and traffic, but that's another story).
We kept in contact throughout the years and I was delighted when I learned that he had garnered a teaching gig in Vietnam. I have mentioned stories about him to some of my colleagues at my current institution (there aren't many academic 'banjo men' in the world, after all), and was deeply saddened to learn that he was sick and had passed away. The world lost a truly unique person on that day.