FRANK L. MUCHA

Frank L. Mucha served in the capacity of SVU Treasurer in the period of 1992-2006. He is a Bratislava native was born at the beginning of the Second World War to quite interesting times. His father who was a CEO of the department store ASO, was out of Slovakia at that time and it took several years before he could return.  So Frank spent the war years with his mother hiding throughout Eastern Europe. 

His schooling started in 1945 in Tatranska Lomnica and after the family moved it continued for the next eleven years in a small town in Northern Bohemia.  He had very early on difficulties with this aspect of his life -- he was informed that youngsters with his background are not the preferred "material" for the new socialist intelligence and having relatives in the USA was not be considered a mitigating circumstance.

He worked as a lathe operator until his departure for the US in 1965. During that time he attended evening classes of the film academy, established a theater of poetry, and wrote poems.

In the USA he passed through the standard phases of immigration -- waiter, bartender, studies. Worked for several years also as a freelance announcer for the Radio Free Europe and an occasional reviewer of books and new films.

In 1967 secured a position of a file clerk at Columbia University, and he remained at the University till now.  He is Administrator for the Department of Psychiatry and concurrently Deputy Director for Administration at the Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene, a non-for profit research organization.

He attended the Graduate School of Business of the Columbia University where he obtained his Master's Degree in Business Policy in 1977.

During the past quarter of century Mucha worked in many areas of University and Foundation administration. He participated in Initial Review Process of NIH as an expert on evaluation of administrative strengths and weaknesses of applicants for large research program projects and centers.

He wrote management related chapters for several "how to" books and manuals on grantsmanship and nonprofit administration, and organized or participated at grantsmanship seminars with M. Rechcigl and Z. Slouka in Czech Republic and with Pan-American Health Organization in countries of South America. World Health Organization invited him several times in the past seven years to organize seminars on "Science Funding Principles" for scientists from Eastern and Central Europe and Russia.

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