Laurence Lattman was president of New Mexico Tech from 1983-1993. He died in Albuquerque in March 2024, at the age of 100.

Laurence H. “Larry” Lattman, the president of New Mexico Tech from 1983-1993, died March 23, 2024, in Albuquerque. As president, he expanded academic programs, oversaw construction of new buildings, and managed NMT during budget deficits. Lattman was 100 years old.

Born Nov. 30, 1923 in New York City, Laurence Lattman attended public schools and later served in the U.S. Army during World War II, working on the atomic bomb at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, and later, the Hanford Site in Washington.

He returned to New York and received a BS in chemical engineering at City College of New York in 1948. His master’s in geology soon followed in 1951 at University of Cincinnati, and he earned his doctorate from UC in 1953.

After teaching at University of Michigan, Lattman went to work for Gulf Oil in Pittsburgh. In 1957, he became a professor of geomorphology and earned tenure at Penn State. From 1970-1975, he returned to head the geology department at University of Cincinnati until 1975 when he became a dean at University of Utah.

In 1983, Lattman was offered the role of president at New Mexico Tech, where he served until 1993. During his administration, Lattman steered the university through financial problems and diversified the offerings for degrees, including environmental and electrical engineering and business administration departments. Enrollment at Tech reached a high of 1,700 in the 1993-1994 academic year.

Lattman was the author or co-author of 45 papers and two books. He served as a consultant to U.S. and foreign companies and government agencies in petroleum and mineral exploration and was a Fulbright Professor at Moscow State University (Idaho) in 1975. A member of several professional societies, Lattman was a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and a 1981 Distinguished Member of the Society of Mining Engineers. He also served on the board of trustees for the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science from 2008-2023.

President Lattman was married to Hanna Renate Cohn Lattman for 76 years. She predeceased him in 2022. Their children are Martin Jacob and Barbara Diane.

In a statement to the NMT community, President Daniel H. López said, “We are grateful for President Lattman’s service to our university. May his memory be a blessing.”