Noemia, Alberto, Cristiane and Albert were my family in Pittsburgh during my PhD studies between 1983 and 1987 at CMU. Here, I reproduce a paragraph in the acknowledgments section of my PhD thesis: "Special thanks to Alberto Elfes, my dear friend and surely, the person that expended the most time with me discussing technical and non-technical matters. I learned a lot from him during my near four years at CMU". It was 33 years ago. Alberto introduced the main concepts of AI to several graduate students of the ECE Department at that time, including myself. I can't find the proper words to describe how influential Alberto was in the fields of mobile and aerial robotics. He authored one of the seminal papers on Probabilistic Robotics when he introduced the occupancy grid framework. In the mid nineties Alberto held a position of Director at CTI, a federal research institute in Brazil where my wife Eliane was then a computer scientist. She remembers his enthusiasm, friendship and leadership during the time he headed the institute. What a miss for all of us that had the privilege of enjoying his friendship, kindness and knowledge. May God comfort the family members.