Karl Gertel (1925 – 2009)

Karl Gertel, agricultural economist and researcher, who worked some forty-three years with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, died in June at the age of 84.

He was born in Vienna and came to the United States as a fourteen- year-old after escaping the National Socialists. He lived with relatives in New York until his parents joined him. He graduated from Cornell University and received both a master’s and doctorate degree during the late 1940s from Iowa State University in resource economics. He also did postgraduate work at the University of Chicago.

Dr. Gertel worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture from about 1950 until his retirement in 1993. He did research and taught in Hawaii and Brazil during his career and also taught at Penn State University. The USDA gave him its Superior Service Award in 1974.