The academic career of John Patrick Crecine spanned more than 26 years and included high-ranking positions at the University of Michigan, Carnegie Mellon University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he was the ninth president.

He was also instrumental in bringing the 1996 Olympic games to Atlanta and the campus of Georgia Tech, where the boxing, swimming, diving, synchronized swimming and water polo competitions were held.

Dr. Crecine, 68, died Monday at his home in Oakland after a four-year battle with cancer.

"He loved Pittsburgh" and moved back to the city about a year ago. "My brother and I grew up in Pittsburgh" in the Schenley Farms neighborhood, said his daughter, Kathryn Alicia Barbara Schoenke of Nederland, Colo.

Dr. Crecine was at Carnegie Mellon from 1975 to 1987, except for one year when he was a visiting fellow at Cambridge University in England. He started at Carnegie Mellon as dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and professor of political economy. In 1983, he was appointed senior vice president and provost. With professor Raj Reddy he initiated the School of Computations Sciences, the second such college in the country. He returned to Carnegie Mellon in the fall of 2006 as distinguished service professor at the John Heinz School of Public Policy and Management.

In addition to his academic positions, Dr. Crecine served on many boards. While still in Michigan, he interrupted his teaching on several occasions to work as an economist and statistician and as an economist with the RAND Corp.

Though he was busy, he made time for his family.

"He was kind, gentle and funny," Ms. Schoenke said.

"He was a mentor to my brother and myself and to so many hundreds of students. He was an amazing grandfather to my son."

His son, Robert Patrick Jess Crecine of Oakland, said, "Though he was a workaholic he did love to sail," which he learned to do while working at RAND Corp. in Palo Alto, Calif.

He combined his love of sailing with his love of sports, sailing to the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with his son and a crew.

"He thought that was the best way to go," his daughter said.

The trip from Florida to Spain "involved 30 days at sea, but the whole trip took three months," his son said.

Dr. Crecine grew up in Lansing, Mich. He earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees from Carnegie Institute of Technology and spent a year at the Stanford University School of Business.

His academic career began at the University of Michigan, where he established the country's first graduate program in public policy in 1968.

From 1987 to 1994, he was president of Georgia Tech, where he also had a joint appointment as tenured professor in the new School of International Affairs and the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering. During his tenure, African-American student enrollment doubled and the number of female faculty members doubled.

Dr. Crecine is also survived by a brother, Michael James Crecine of Lansing, Mich.; and one grandson.

Funeral services will be today at 2 p.m. at John A. Freyvogel Sons, 4900 Centre Ave. at Devonshire Street, Shadyside. Interment is private.