In Memoriam

Slobodan Mitric (1941-2018)

Slobodan was born at a time when his tiny Serbian village of Lipolist — in the former Yugoslavia– was in flames, his mother a war widow. The hardships of these early war years did not hold him back – he tended sheep with his head in a book, and soon distinguished himself at school.

Slobodan’s class of 1964 was the first to graduate from the new department of Transport Engineering at the University of Belgrade. Next, came a year of obligatory military services with the Yugoslav People’s Army, on the Adriatic island of Vis, where a water shortage meant soldiers often drank red wine! It was here, he said, he learned to sleep standing up. One of his jobs was to guard the library, foreshadowing a life as a true bibliophile, and inveterate hunter of used books.

After two years in Denmark as a traffic engineer for the City of Copenhagen, Slobodan arrived in the US in 1967, travelling by greyhound bus from New York to California. He obtained his Ph.D. in Civil & Transport Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley in 1972. During his first year there, he lived at International House where he was a member of a small group of foreign students who managed to combine the pursuit of an excellence in their respective fields with a love of life and camaraderie. This earned them the nickname “the Dolce Vita Group”. Several of those life-long friends ended up at the World Bank. It was also at Berkeley that he met and married Joan, his wife of 49 years.

This duality of professional excellence and love of life carried on through his years as a professor of transport engineering at Ohio State University (where he revamped the graduate curriculum and received a distinguished teaching award), and throughout his World Bank career.

Slobodan spent most of his professional life at the Bank where, for a quarter-century, (1978-2003), he helped shape the urban transport agenda through project work, sector reviews and strategy and policy documents. However, his intellectual influence extended far beyond the Bank. Needless to say, with his professional competence and innate friendliness, his advice was greatly appreciated by his government counterparts. In retirement, he carried out a pro bono study for the City of Belgrade; created a projects database and synthesis of WB urban transport experiences in the 1999-2012 period; authored the urban transport chapter for the national strategy for India (2007); and penned a 2005 analysis of urban transport policies relative to poverty. A frequent lecturer at conferences, seminars, and universities, he authored numerous professional articles. A member of COTADU and the Transportation Research Board, he presented at annual meetings, organized panels and published in the TRB journal. His writings ranged from “Elevator Systems for Tall Buildings” (1975), to “Approaching Metros as Potential Development Projects” (1997), and “Urban Transport for Development: Towards an Operationally-Oriented Strategy” (2008). His final work, “The World Bank’s Engagement with Transport in Cities: the Early Years,” will be published in 2018.

Apart from his unflinching professional integrity and intellectual vibrancy, Slobodan is most remembered for his jest and joie de vivre. Whether you were with him in Washington, Tunisia, China or Yemen, he was always ready to eat life with a spoon which was reflected in his earthy, genuine laughter. It was the rare day that he did not take pleasure interacting with WB colleagues as they wrestled with knotty problems their clients faced, no matter the spot on the globe.

During his time in the EMENA Urban Division, his colleagues often could tell the week was over by the sight of Slobodan returning from a nearby shop with a few vino bottles for the Friday party — an informal tradition that highlighted the exceptional working and social atmosphere of the time. And, true to form, Slobodan would sip his wine from a proper glass while the rest of us used plastic cups. When Slobodan moved to a new job, he often would “gift” his old group with a few “special” wine glasses, unearthed at a favorite thrift store. Despite the unremitting work, if you were on mission with Slobodan, time was always made for wide-ranging conversations around poetry, music, philosophy, and almost anything else under the sun. These work friendships endure.

In fact, Slobodan saw everyone as worthy of great interest, and had the wonderful capacity to make a new friend out of what might have been, to others, a cursory acquaintance. Because of this, and so much more, he will be widely remembered by colleagues from the Bank, and with great warmth and affection. As one of his many friends said…we should not think only of our sadness that Slobodan went away, but of our great good luck that our paths crossed.

Slobodan is survived by his wife, Joan McQueeney Mitric, and his three children, Ana Mitric of Silver Spring, Janko A. Mitric of Takoma Park, and Julia B. Mitric of Sacramento, as well as daughter-in-law, Rachel Beers, son-in-law, Adan Romo, and four grandchildren.

Slobodan’s family welcomes contributions to the ALS research fund set up in his name: http://web.alsa.org/site/TR/PersonalFund/NationalOffice?px=7700218&pg=personal&fr_id=10054 or to your local library.

Submitted by colleagues and friends