From left to right, Aviva, Benjamin, Sabba, Isaac and Mayer at Sabba’s 70th birthday party in 2016.

Family:  Married in 1971 to Deborah (Ochacher) in New Rochelle, NY. Children, Jodi Melissa, born in 1973, and Adam Daniel born in 1976. Jodi is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of New York University (dual major in Jewish Studies and Sociology). She has a Master’s Degree in Jewish Studies from The University of Southampton in the United Kingdom. Jodi worked in the Jewish community before marrying Evan Bloom of Johannesburg, South Africa on October 14, 2007. After living in Johannesburg, they moved to the Syracuse area where Evan has started his own publlic relations firm, Fortress Strategic Communications LLC. Bob and Debby became grandparents (Sabba and Savta, Hebrew for grandfather and grandmother) with their first grandchild, Isaac Matan, in August, 2010. Their second grandchild, Benjamin Asher, was born in August, 2012 a day before Isaac’s birthday. Bob and Debby are thrilled to have two grandsons living minutes away and take every opportunity to spend time with them. Adam is a Cum Laude graduate of Manhattanville College (history major), earning his Master’s Degree in History from Hunter College, City University of New York and his doctorate, with distinction, in American History at Loyola University in Chicago. His thesis was honored as dissertation of the year in the Humanities. Adam married Rachel Fatoorachi from Northbrook, Illinois on June 7, 2009. They now live in the Scranton, PA area. Just 10 days after grandson Benjamin was born in Syracuse to Jodi and Evan, Adam and Rachel presented Debby and Bob with their first granddaughter, Aviva Yaffa. In May of 2014, Adam and Rachel’s second child, Mayer Doron was born. Adam is an Assistant Professor of History at Marywood University in Scranton, Pennsylvania, just two hours away from Debby, Bob, and Jodi’s family and Rachel is pursuing a nursing degree. Adam published the book, The Vegetarian Crusade that sold out its first printing in less than a year. He is a frequent invited lecturer and guest on television and radio news programs discussing issues related to the book as well as issues related to American History and current events.

From Debby’s collection                            Adam’s book                                                              Debby feeding Isaac in 2010

Debby has been a constant source of inspiration to her family,  placing everyone else’s needs above her own and being present for her children at all times when they were growing up. Now she is doing the same as Savta for her four grandchildren. The entire family loves travel and has made voyages to Europe, Israel, the Caribbean, Canada, Mexico, and much of the U.S. together. Debby and Bob have taken extensive archaeological tours of Israel, and they have traveled to Europe on many occasions, especially enjoying their frequent trips to Italy, but visiting Great Britain, France, Greece, Croatia, Montenegro, Malta, Spain, Gibralter, Switzerland, Turkey, and Portugal. Debby is an amateur archaeologist with a special interest in Biblical Archaeology. She has a substantial collection of ancient artifacts, like the Roman glass unguentarium shown above, from Israel and the entire middle east.

Personal Story: Dr. Shprintzen fits the definition of a “baby boomer” having been born right after World War II in 1946 in Brooklyn, New York. The previous generation of his family had emigrated to the U.S. from Eastern Europe. His father, Milton, was born in what was at that time the Russian Empire, but is today part of Ukraine, in Medzhibozh, closely linked with the Baal-Shem-Tov, Israel ben Eliezer, 1700-1760, founder of the Hasidic movement. His mother, Florence, was born in the U.S. to immigrant parents from the Russian Empire of that time. The Shprintzen family moved to New Rochelle in 1948, a suburb of New York in Westchester County. The family was very close and warm, with a large extended family living primarily in Brooklyn. His paternal grandmother, who had singlehandedly extracted his father’s family from Europe and brought them to the U.S., lived with the family until her death in 1968. His mother, Florence, a brilliant woman devoted to raising her family, graduated from high school two years early at 16 with high honors. She was a true scholar whose education came from the many thousands of books she read throughout her lifetime that ended far too early at the age of 70 in 1985. She had a special affinity for history, medicine, and the study of Judaism and Jewish history. His father, Milton, a truly a self-made man, worked his way from menial jobs in textile factories in Manhattan to partner in a textile firm. Late in life, he moved to the business world arranging investments for start-up firms. The youngest of 6 children, but the only male, he was a true patriarch for his family. Until his death just days short of his 95th birthday in 2007, he continued to be an imposing figure.

Dr. Shprintzen graduated from New Rochelle High School in 1964. In high school, he was involved many activities in

school, including athletics and music. He was on his high school football, baseball, and wrestling teams, and one year an injured ankle left him with only bowling as a varsity sport option. He also played the flute in the school band and orchestra, achieving county and statewide honors for his music. At the age of 14, he played in concert with the Westchester Orchestral Society Symphony Orchestra (precursor of the Westchester Symphony) alongside his late brother, Ira, a masterful tuba player who played with the symphony for many years.

From high school, it was on to the University of Rochester where he graduated in 1968 with a B.A. in Psychology with Biology as a minor. He was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity and played ice hockey on the university team. Next, it was on to the University of Rhode Island for a two-year fellowship  program as part of a Psycho-Educational Diagnostic and Treatment Center. He earned a Master of Science in Speech Pathology in 1970 and decided to continue his studies at the doctoral level.

He moved to Syracuse University in 1970, shortly after meeting Deborah Ochacher, then a student at Ohio University. They met at a summer camp where Bob was Athletic Director and Debby was a group leader for four-year-old girls. He and Debby fell in love almost immediately and were inseparable for the summer. A proposal of marriage came less than three months later. They married in August of 1971 and celebrated their 46th wedding anniversary last August. Bob’s emphasis at Syracuse University was the use of radiographic procedures to evaluate velopharyngeal anatomy and physiology. Most of his time was spent at Upstate Medical Center with his remarkable mentors, speech pathologist Gerald N. McCall, Ph.D. and radiologist M. Leon Skolnick, M.D. He also had a minor in Physiological Psychology. He was a Research Administration Fellow and was a Teaching Assistant to Dr. Louis DiCarlo. He was assigned as Student Supervisor at the Cleft Palate Clinic at Upstate Medical Center where he worked for three years with his exceptional mentors, Drs. McCall and Skolnick. These two innovators mentored Dr. Shprintzen over three years and cemented his interest in craniofacial disorders, anatomy, and physiology. In their early years together in Syracuse, Bob and Debby were financially poor but happiness rich. Bob completed his doctorate in the summer of 1973, weeks before his daughter, Jodi Melissa was born.

After completing his doctorate, the country was in the midst of a deep recession and there were few jobs available in academia. The only offer received was as an Assistant Professor of Speech Pathology at Auburn University in Alabama. With new baby in tow, the Shprintzen family moved south where they stayed for less than one year. Determined to move back to the northeast, they returned to the New York City area in May, 1974 to hunt for a new job. With the help of the late Betty Jane McWilliams, Ph.D., a true giant in the field of cleft palate, a position was secured at Montefiore Medical Center and The Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, as head of a growing craniofacial program.

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Adam Daniel was born in 1976. Throughout their entire marriage, the Shprintzens have always made their children their highest priority, and the family remains exceptionally close. Most of his spare time during Jodi and Adam’s childhood was devoted to coaching their various sporting activities, including soccer for both of them, and basketball and baseball for Adam. Both Jodi and Adam went on to be starting tennis players for their high school teams. Dr. Shprintzen’s recreational activity in those days was running. He ran in dozens of 10K races (once placing first in his age group running sub-7-minute miles) and several half-marathons. He capped off his running interest with a successful completion of the New

York Marathon in 1983, a race  hampered by strong winds (gusting to 40 miles per hour), rain and cold with many runners

Dr. Shprintzen (yellow hat) finishing the New York Marathon in 1983

unable to finish the due to hypothermia. He also played both basketball and ice hockey in “old man” leagues into his 50s.

At Montefiore and Einstein, under the compassionate guidance of the Chairman of Plastic Surgery, the late Dr. Michael Lewin, and mentoring from his partner at the Center, pediatrician Dr. Eugene J. Sidoti, Dr. Shprintzen was able to shape the program as he saw fit. Dr. Shprintzen would stay in that position for 23 years, taking a program that had fewer than 70 new referrals per year to one of the largest programs of its kind in the country with over 400 new referrals per year by 1985. In 1976, he became the first clinician to advocate the use of flexible fiberoptic nasopharyngoscopy in craniofacial centers in the U.S. and published the first articles describing the use of pediatric endoscopes in these clinical settings. He was visited by clinicians from all over the world to learn the techniques he developed for using this new instrumentation. In 1975, a new interest was developed in the field of human genetics. Following some intense study and contacts with several of the most exceptional experts in the field at the time, including his primary mentor, the late M. Michael Cohen, Jr., a program in craniofacial genetics was developed at the Montefiore Center, and Dr. Shprintzen published a number of important papers and chapters. During those early years when the field was growing so rapidly, he described four previously unrecognized genetic conditions, all of which have proven to be distinct disorders with genetic etiologies. Most prominent of these was a disorder he called velo-cardio-facial syndrome (VCFS) in a 1978 publication. He is widely recognized as the person who “discovered” this disorder, and some people refer to this condition as Shprintzen syndrome.  It is one of the most common genetic syndromes in humans. Other syndromes described by Dr. Shprintzen include Shprintzen-Goldberg craniosynostosis syndrome, Shprintzen omphalocele syndrome, and Goldberg-Shprintzen megacolon syndrome.

Following his 1978 publication, Dr. Shprintzen published many more papers and chapters on this disorder. In 1994, he founded the Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome Educational Foundation, an autonomous foundation designed to educate people worldwide about VCFS. The Foundation expanded to thousands of members worldwide, and Dr. Shprintzen was elected the first Executive Director of the Foundation serving until 2003.

Dr. Shprintzen has also held high office in a number of professional societies. He was President of The Society of Craniofacial Genetics and President of The Society for Ear, Nose, and Throat Advances in Children (SENTAC). He has won a number of major awards including the Robert Ruben Award for Scientific Advancement from SENTAC. Perhaps the most significant honor he received was the Honors of the Association of The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) in 2013. The Honors of the Association is highest award given by ASHA, the professional organization representing more than 166,000 professionals in the communication scientists.

The Shprintzens moved to the Syracuse area (for the second time) in 1997 to the village of Manlius just east of the city in order to take a job at Upstate Medical University. Patients came from all over the world to Syracuse to see Dr. Shprintzen and to be evaluated at the comprehensive program he built with a team of more than 25 professionals from more than a dozen departments and subspecialties. He began major fundraising activities to support the VCFS International Center and with the support of a number of generous and selfless families, the program was able to maintain a level of care and attention to each individual patient. In July of 2012, Dr. Shprintzen retired from Upstate at the age of 66 and began a new project in order to bring expertise and information to more people at no cost. In August of 2012, Dr. Shprintzen and a group of friends and colleagues launched The Virtual Center for Velo-Cardio-Facial Syndrome, Inc. This charitable organization is dedicated to providing personal information for people with VCFS that can be transmitted to their local health care professionals, providing them with the benefit of the expertise of the staff at the Virtual Center. The information is provided live by video call or telephone to anyone who asks for it at no fee or charge. The organization is supported entirely by donations. Dr. Shprintzen joined the adjunct faculty in the Department of Speech Pathology at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT under the direction of Dr. Rhea Paul. who is also the recipient of the Honors of the Association from ASHA. The department has started a new graduate program to which Dr. Shprintzen will lend his expertise.

Dr. Shprintzen has been a frequent author of scientific articles, chapters, and text books. He has published seven books and more than 240 articles and chapters. He has presented many hundreds of papers and lectures. He has been an invited speaker in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Jordan,   Mexico, Monaco, The Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, and nearly every state in the U.S.

The Shprintzens have been happy in the Syracuse area, finding it a wonderful place to live with a superb quality of life. The family is very active with their synagogue, Shaarei Torah Orthodox Congregation of Syracuse where Dr. Shprintzen served as the congregation’s Treasurer and Chairman of the Board for many years until last year. Debby has also served on the Board of Directors. With all four of their grandchildren living nearby, Debby and Bob could not be happier. Their favorite thing to do is to be with their families and to play with their grandchildren.