Peter William Likins was president of the University of Arizona

University of Arizona

The University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...

 from 1997 until his retirement in summer 2006.

Previous posts in order of most recent were:

• President of Lehigh University
  Lehigh University
  Lehigh University is a private, co-educational university located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley region of the United States. It was established in 1865 by Asa Packer as a four-year technical school, but has grown to include studies in a wide variety of disciplines...
  
  
• Provost for professional schools at Columbia University
  Columbia University
  Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
  
  ,
• Dean of Columbia's engineering school.

At each of these universities, Likins was a professor of engineering

Engineering

Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...

.

During the last semester of his presidency, a wire from his pacemaker

Artificial pacemaker

A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart...

 poked a hole in his heart, causing him to nearly faint during an emergency drill being conducted on campus at the time. He underwent open heart surgery

Open Heart Surgery

Open Heart Surgery was released on August 8, 2000 by rock band Virginwool. The band signed to Breaking/Atlantic Records after initially beginning signed to Universal Records. The album was produced and mixed by Brad Wood....

soon thereafter. Under different conditions emergency medical personal might not have been able to respond in time to save him.

Sources

• http://www4.lehigh.edu/about/history/pastpresidents.aspx#Likins
• http://www.nndb.com/people/149/000171633/