Professor Anne Bresnock, a dedicated champion of the economics department and an innovative teacher, died Oct.16.

Bresnock, who came to Cal Poly Pomona in 1990, retired in 2018 but continued to teach at the university.

“The Cal Poly Pomona economics department lost its most vigorous and vocal champion…with the passing of Anne Bresnock,” said Bruce Brown, economics department chair. “Her devotion to the department was surpassed only by that to her students, whose successes thrilled her, and challenges pained her, as if they were her own children.”

Bresnock served on the College of Letters Arts and Social Sciences Curriculum Committee for nearly 30 years. Even as she neared retirement, she took charge of the department’s conversion to semesters from quarters in 2018.

She was innovative in her teaching. In 2000, Bresnock and a colleague from Cal State Los Angeles, Neil Garston, were awarded a $500,000 National Science Foundation Grant to develop a teaching tool, Sim Econ, inspired by video games such as SimCity. In the early 2000s she worked tirelessly on this project, bringing it to fruition.

Bresnock also developed and curated online information for teaching environmental economics, through her Sustainable Earth Exchange Link Information for Educators website.

She loved traveling, whether to Europe or driving up the California coast.  Unfortunately, medical issues limited her mobility in later years.  When she was younger, she had been an active runner and completed marathons.

Bresnock hailed from Hazelton, Pennsylvania, an area rich in anthracite coal. Her grandfather worked in the coal mines, and he lived to see his granddaughter become a professor. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in economics from Russell Sage College in New York, and her Master of Arts and doctorate in economics from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

She resided most recently in San Juan Capistrano, where she appreciated being close to the ocean and clean air. She was known to be an enthusiastic supporter of social justice and environmental causes such as Greenpeace.

Iris Levine, CLASS dean, described Bresnock as a “tireless champion of economics as a social science.”

“Anne had an unforgettable energy and enthusiasm that will be profoundly missed by her colleagues and students,” Levine said.