Leslie McPherson portrait of Leslie D. Stroebel

Leslie D. Stroebel was born on March 11, 1920 and grew up in Maplewood, MN. Wishing to study photography, Stroebel entered the Rochester Athenaeum and Mechanics Institute's (RAMI) Department of Photographic Technology in 1939. At the time, RAMI's program was one of the only photography programs in the country and had a good reputation in the field. Stroebel was involved in several campus organizations including band, the photo-tech camera club, and Chi Delta Phi fraternity. Upon graduating from RAMI in 1942, Stroebel joined the U.S. military. He was sent to Lowry Air Force Base in Colorado to learn about aerial photography in the Air Corps Technical School.

Following World War II, Stroebel returned to RAMI (renamed Rochester Institute of Technology in 1944) as a faculty member in its Photographic Technology department. During his tenure, he founded the Technical Photography program with the first two students enrolling in the program in 1982. Stroebel is remembered as one of the key figures that helped build the Rochester Institute of Technology's (RIT) School of Photographic Arts and Sciences into the program it is today.