Goldoftas is shown at the dedication of the fund bearing his name at OSUATI on June 5, 1998.
Tobi Goldoftas, who served as chief editor of Hydraulics & Pneumatics for 20 years, died on April 14, 2004, following a brief illness. He is survived by a son, three daughters, and two grandchildren. He and his late wife, Ann, who died last year, celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary in 2001.
Born in Lithuania in 1922, he and his family moved to Belgium. In 1939, his family fled to the U.S. to escape the Nazi occupation. Goldoftas attended Delaware Valley College in Doylestown, Pa., and went on to earn BS and MS degrees in Agricultural Engineering from Michigan State University. He then gained 10 years of industrial experience designing hydraulic systems for International Harvester in Chicago and J.I. Case in Ft. Wayne, Ind. He later attended Cleveland Marshall Law School and was admitted to the Ohio Bar in 1967.
Goldoftas joined the staff of Hydraulics & Pneumatics in 1960 as an associate editor. He became chief editor in 1968, a position held until his retirement in 1987. After his retirement from the magazine, he worked part time as director of the Hydraulics & Pneumatics Show in the 1990s.
He also directed the Great Lakes Fluid Power Show, held in Cleveland in 1990, and shared proceeds with the Cleveland chapter of the Fluid Power Society. A charitable foundation was formed to manage these funds, which eventually were donated to Ohio State University's Agricultural Technical Institute in Wooster, Ohio, as the Tobi Goldoftas Fluid Power Fund in 1998. Greg Gordon, fluid power coordinator at OSU-ATI, says money from the fund is used not only for student scholarships, but to promote fluid power technology. "We could have all the scholarship money in the world, but if we didn't promote fluid power as a worthwhile career, we wouldn't have enough students to distribute the funds to," explained Gordon.
Those interested in contributing to the Tobi Goldoftas Fluid Power Fund should should address correspondence to the fund at OSU-ATI, 1328 Dover Rd., Wooster, OH 44691.
