Robert Lewis Ketter was born in 1929 in Welch, West Virginia; earned a B.S. in Civil Engineering from University of Missouri, Columbia in 1950; earned an M.S. in Civil Engineering from Lehigh University in 1952 and a Ph.D., also in civil engineering, at Lehigh in 1956, where he taught as associate professor.

In 1958 he came to the University of Buffalo to act as chair of the Civil Engineering Department, and in 1965 was named Dean of the graduate School. In 1967, Ketter became Vice President of Facilities Planning, where he would be responsible for much of the planning, design and construction of UB's new Amherst Campus.

In 1971 Ketter was inaugurated as President of the University, a post he held until 1982 in addition to teaching civil engineering. In 1985 he was named Director of UB's Earthquake Engineering and Systems Dynamics Laboratories, and in 1986 Ketter was instrumental in obtaining a grant from the National Science Foundation to found the National Center for Earthquake Engineering Research, of which he was also Director. In 1986 the University named a building after Ketter (home to the Department of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering). He was recipient of several honorary degrees, including a Doctor of Engineering form Lehigh University, 1986, and a Doctor of Science from Kyoungpook University, S. Korea, 1973. Ketter died in 1989.