Robert Steck, NPC Golden Owl, dies at 70

Robert N. Steck, 70, a Silver Owl member of the National Press Club, died March 9 at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in West Roxbury, Mass., after a long battle with cancers attributed to Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War.

He was a communications consultant, college professor and speechwriter who lived in Washington, D.C., from 1986 to 2012, often spending time at his favorite book store, Politics and Prose. He had lived most recently in Boston.

Mr. Steck was director of executive communications for Fannie Mae from 1986 to 1989 and wrote speeches for Dun & Bradstreet executives between 1983 and 1993. He had a consulting business known as Executive Communications. He also taught philosophy at Washington and Lee University and Colorado College. He joined the NPC in 1987.

He was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas, and received a BA degree in philosophy from the University of Texas in Austin in 1966. He then studied at Yale as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Harvard as a Rockefeller Fellow. Mr. Steck was drafted late in the Vietnam War and for many years after his discharge was active in Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He returned Vietnam twice, both times riding a tandem bicycle from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City with a fellow veteran who was blind.

Survivors include his wife, Sarah Bullard Steck, four daughters, a brother and grandson.