He’s still known as Bullet Bob, even at age 73.

Bob Umholtz has spent 49 years delivering lectures at lightning speed to Kansas University mechanical engineering students.

Bob Umholtz, who has spent 49 years lecturing to Kansas University mechanical engineering students, is believed to be KU's longest-serving current faculty member.

“They say he writes with one hand and erases with the other,” said Ron Dougherty, the department’s chairman. “But they mean that in a good way. I think you’d say he’s a demanding fellow, but he’s very, very helpful to the students.”

Umholtz, thought to be KU’s longest-serving current faculty member, will be honored during his department’s annual awards ceremony at 6:30 tonight at the Burge Union.

He’s being given the department’s new distinguished alumni award and being recognized for his appointment to the Wesley G. Cramer professorship, which provides $15,000 toward his salary and teaching materials for three years.

Umholtz came to KU as an undergraduate student in 1946 and graduated in mechanical engineering in 1951. After brief stints with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Phillips Petroleum Co., he returned to KU in 1953 as a faculty member.

He had no idea he’d stay so long.

The slide rule that Umholtz once carried everywhere now sits in his desk drawer. Computers and calculators have replaced it.

“Engineering is not like history you have to keep up with the technical advances,” he said. “The basic concepts of engineering haven’t changed, just the methods of calculations have.”

Umholtz remembers the first computer that was brought to KU’s campus in 1957. It took up an entire room in Summerfield Hall, and he taught Numerical Analysis of Computer Engineering Problems using the now-arcane machine.

“We still have the course,” he said. “The topics are the same, just the software gets more complicated. The computer has revolutionized engineering.”

Umholtz had opportunities to leave KU through the years, including an attractive offer in 1960 from Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill, N.J. And he said he always figured he’d retire at age 62. But he said a love for Lawrence and his students kept him here and kept him teaching. He has no plans to retire.

“I’m enjoying the work, as long as my health holds out,” he said. “You like to think you make a difference, and sometimes you do.”

Umholtz teaches three courses each semester, is associate dean and does much of the department’s undergraduate advising.

Dougherty said having Umholtz on the faculty gave students and faculty members historical context for their work.

“He’s got a memory that’s just incredible,” Dougherty said. “It’s much better than mine. I think that does inspire us to want to be that sort of person.”