Robert L. Steiner Jr.

Robert L. Steiner, Jr. passed away November 7, 2017. He was 96 years old and died peacefully at home. Steiner was born and raised in Tehran, Iran to Presbyterian educational missionaries. He spoke fluent Persian. He returned to the United States as a teenager to attend Mercersburg Academy and the College of Wooster where he met and later married Margaret Sherrard. Steiner devoted most of his career to building cultural, economic, and educational bridges between the United States and countries throughout the Middle East and Asia. After WWII where he flew for the Navy, Steiner studied at Columbia University earning a Master’s degree in International relations. He spent the next 10 years working in the U.S. Foreign Service and with various nongovernmental organizations. In 1950 he returned to Iran for two years working as the cultural attaché for the American Embassy. In 1959 Steiner left international service to become a chicken farmer and high school teacher in Vermont. Four years later United States Peace Corps Director Sargent Shriver asked Steiner to head the first Peace Corps program in Afghanistan. Four years later Steiner returned to Washington D.C. to head the Peace Corps North Africa, Near East, and South Asia (NANESA) division under then director Jack Vaughn. Continuing his deep interest in international affairs, Steiner assumed the directorship of the University of Hawaii’s Center for Cross-Cultural Training and Research in 1969. A decade later Steiner founded InterLink Language Centers then headquartered in Princeton, NJ. Steiner and his wife Margaret retired to Lancaster, PA in 1995. He is survived by Margaret, his daughter Patricia, sons Bill and his wife Kristi, John and his wife Noriko, Chip and his wife Martha, brother Edwin and his wife Doris, four grandchildren and one great grandchild. A memorial service is scheduled for Saturday, January 20, 2018 at 2:30 p.m. at the Bachman Center, Homestead Village, Lancaster, PA. Please check the funeral home website, http://www.thegroffs.com, or feel free to e-mail Chip Steiner directly at chippersteiner@gmail.com