Bob Fisher’s long life – he’s 87 – is full of accomplishments that range from education to civic leader to athlete, and his most recent achievement was setting a new American record in the one-minute sprint for men over 85 at the World Rowing Indoor Championships. Fisher was the oldest competitor in the Open class for men over 80 at the international event that drew more than 500 athletes from 54 countries.
He has built universities, governed cities, raced at Le Mans, and steered one of America’s great philanthropic foundations. Now, at 87 years old, Bob Fisher has added one more line to a life that reads like a novel: Silver Medalist at the World Rowing Indoor Championships.
Earlier this year, competing among more than 500 athletes from 54 countries, Fisher stepped to the line as the oldest competitor in the open class for men over 80. He finished second, and in doing so set a new American record in the one-minute sprint for men over 85, and was the top American finisher in his class.
For 41 years, Fisher has lived in Orinda, but never one to toot his own horn. Many neighbors may know him as simply a generous and thoughtful presence. Fewer may know that the same man who has long argued for the protection of Southwood Valley once crossed the finish line first in class at the 12 Hours of Sebring.
Long before the race cars, the city councils, or the corner offices, Fisher rowed on nationally and internationally dominant crews at Harvard and the London School of Economics and Political Science. Those early mornings on the river instilled habits of discipline and competition that, seven decades later, remain very much intact.
Fisher and his wife Ellie moved from London to the Bay Area in 1965, when he accepted an offer to become the youngest assistant professor on the Berkeley campus, in the School of Criminology. They settled in Lafayette’s Upper Happy Valley the following year, and Bob promptly threw himself into the life of his adopted community. He was the top vote-getter in Lafayette’s incorporation election, a founding member of Lafayette’s first City Council, and twice served as mayor (the youngest in California at the time), earning him the affectionate local nickname “The World’s Fastest Mayor,” due to his car racing prowess. He chaired Lafayette’s first Fire Commission, Police Commission, and Youth Commission, and through his work on the County’s Local Agency Formation Commission earned the distinction of being called the “Father of Moraga.”
Through the 1970s, Fisher competed professionally on the national and international racing circuit, winning the U.S. Grand Prix of Endurance — the 12 Hours of Sebring — along with the Six Hours of Watkins Glen, and driving prominently in the 24 Hours of Daytona, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the North American Formula Atlantic Championship, and the storied Baja 1000. After winning 11 of 13 national Sports Car Club of America races in 1974, he retired at the top. His influence on Northern California car culture runs deep: in 1970, while mayor of Lafayette, he organized the first annual Concours d’Elegance de Lafayette, which was repeated annually for the next 30 years, raising funds for local nonprofits and inspiring two generations of enthusiasts. In 2017, the leaders of Orinda’s Classic Car Show recognized that legacy by honoring Bob with the only “Lamorinda Classic Car Pioneer Award” ever conferred.
When the Fishers moved to Orinda in the mid-1980s, Bob brought with him a track record that would shape the community for generations. As architect and president of John F. Kennedy University for a decade, he pioneered mid-career adult education nationally, relocating the university to Orinda’s then-closed Pine Grove School and later to Wagner Ranch, growing JFKU into Orinda’s largest employer. In 1985, he co-chaired the Campaign for Cal Shakespeare Festival and negotiated the landmark gift from George and Sue Bruns that built the Bruns Amphitheater.
As CEO of The San Francisco Foundation (one of the largest public foundations in the country) Fisher directed significant philanthropic resources toward Lamorinda nonprofits and donors. He has served on the boards of the Lesher Center, Temple Isaiah, the Oakland Tribune, and the Acalanes Unified School District, and lent his fundraising expertise to the $44-million campaign for the new Lafayette Library and Learning Center. Throughout, he has been a steadfast voice for Orinda’s conservationist values, particularly in the effort to protect Southwood Valley and Tara Creek. His career also carried him to Manhattan, where he served as chief executive of the 92nd Street Y, and to San Francisco, where he led Alonzo King’s LINES Contemporary Ballet, a reflection of a lifelong devotion to culture and the arts.
What drove Bob back to the rowing machine at 87? The same thing, perhaps, that drove him to every starting line before it: a genuine love of competition, and an apparently undiminished belief that there is always something more to accomplish.
His wife Ellie, who has been married to Bob for 66 years, describes him as deeply committed and grounded, outgoing, accessible, and understated. “He has always been larger than life,” she says, “but he has always been popular because he cares.”
At the World Rowing Indoor Championships, surrounded by athletes from 54 countries, the oldest man in the field set an American record. Then, in characteristic fashion, he probably didn’t make much of a fuss about it. Orinda is lucky he’s letting us make a little fuss now.
