Obituaries

Harold R. Ortman, a dentist and longtime faculty member in the School of Dental Medicine, died Oct. 14 under hospice care in Wesley Rehabilitation Center, Getzville, after a short illness. He was 98.

Born in Buffalo, Ortman earned his undergraduate degree from UB before graduating cum laude from the School of Dental Medicine in 1941.

He joined the dental school faculty in 1942 and became a professor and chair of the Department of Removable Prosthodontics, which he helped establish in 1964.

He started the current postgraduate program in prosthodontics and began a scholarship program to support postgraduate prosthodontic students. The school’s postgraduate prosthodontics clinic is named in his honor.

A popular lecturer known for his attention to students and his technical excellence, Ortman personally reviewed every set of dentures for every patient served by the dental school.

He authored numerous scholarly articles and contributed to several dental textbooks. He also presented demonstration clinics, courses and lectures throughout the U.S. and Canada, as well as in South America, South Korea, Thailand and Egypt.

A past president of the American Prosthodontic Society, Ortman retired as a professor emeritus in 1988.

While teaching at UB, he also maintained a private practice for more than 60 years, retiring in the early 2000s.

The cover story of the Winter 2001 issue of UB Dentist, the dental school’s alumni magazine, recounted the century-long association of the Ortman family with the dental school — Ortman’s father, Harold T., graduated from the school in 1911 and his son, Lance, also a UB dental school alumnus, also served as a dental school faculty member and administrator. The article, titled “The Ortman Era,” described how Harold R. “worked 16-hour days. He started his day seeing patients in his home office at 3800 Main St. near the South Campus, hiked across the Grover Cleveland golf course at mid-morning to teach in Farber Hall, returned to his office late afternoon to see more patients, stopped for dinner and then continued working until late evening.”

An avid outdoorsman despite his busy schedule, Ortman found time to fish, hunt and shoot skeet with his friends. He and his late wife, Virginia, also traveled and photographed around the world.

Services will be private.