Friends, family remember beloved CSU professor who started world-renowned lab

As John Spencer looked out at the friends, family, colleagues, former students and rec league soccer players gathered at a local sports bar Thursday to toast to Ian Orme, he knew one thing.

"He would have loved this," Spencer said. “... He had a big heart. He cared about everybody.”

Orme was a fixture at Colorado State University, where he conducted research on tuberculosis, before he died June 19 following a heart attack. Spencer worked with Orme for 22 years.

He could picture the 65-year-old professor, if he'd been there, standing up to say, "All this for me? This is so nice."

When Orme first applied for a job at CSU, some folks worried about his lack of teaching experience. He was primarily a researcher, after all.

But fellow researcher and professor Patrick Brennan, who encouraged Orme to apply, told them not to worry — Orme, he said, had a flair for the dramatics.

Orme got the job.

He and Brennan formally established CSU’s Mycobacteria Research Labs when Orme arrived at CSU about 30 years ago. The world-renowned group now includes 20 scientists' laboratories.

He became a full professor in 1995, and in 2009 CSU honored him with its highest award, making him a University Distinguished Professor for his excellence in research, according to a news release.

Orme's death struck Brennan, who was older than him, as unfair. 

“He’d always say, ‘Brennan, you’re older than dirt,’” Brennan said during a toast at Mulligan's Pub and Sports Club in Fort Collins. 

The group had gathered to celebrate Orme's memory during a World Cup match. 

Orme’s son, Joseph, at halftime recalled how passionate his father was about soccer — he helped found the County Cork recreational soccer club — and his work at CSU.

He told the Coloradoan he didn’t realize the scope of his father’s work until he was a teenager and Orme took him on a trip to Japan to go to a conference. Joseph was struck by the sheer number of people who came to hear his father speak and pick his brain, he said.

He realized Orme was famous in the scientific community, something evidenced by the well-wishes and condolences sent to the family from around the world since Orme died.

“But for me, he was just my dad,” Joseph said.

Some of Orme’s most notable accomplishments include receiving the Roussel Prize, an international research award, in 1994, and the Charles C. Shepard science award from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1999, according to a news release.

He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology in 2002, and in 2014, was named a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Orme has more than 300 publications to his name and authored more than 30 scientific chapters. He proposed nearly 300 grants during his career, raising more than $100 million in research funding, according to the release.

Marcela Henao-Tomayo, an assistant professor at CSU, said Orme was a great mentor. In a field dominated by men, he helped bring women up, she said.

She remembers writing Orme a long email when she finished up medical school in Colombia. She went into detail explaining her experience, what she wanted to do, why she thought she was a good fit and why he should take her on.

“He replied with two sentences,” Henao-Tomayo said.

"Cool. When do you want to come?"

When Orme stepped back and retired before his death, Henao-Tomayo applied for the position he left open. She got it.

She’s glad to carry on his work, but "it’s a huge amount of responsibility and stress, and it’s a little scary, to be honest. His are very big shoes to walk in.”