In Memoriam
Posted on Fri, 12/07/2012 - 15:43
Dr. Lawrence Suchow '51
Dr. Lawrence Suchow passed away peacefully on October 7th, at age 89. A resident of Fort Lee, NJ, he was Professor Emeritus of Chemistry at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He was educated in New York City Public Schools and at DeWitt Clinton High School, CCNY, and Brooklyn Poly. He held numerous scientific publications and patents. Dr. Suchow served in the U.S. Army on the Manhattan Project in the Corps of Engineers in Oak Ridge, TN. He was a lover of chemistry, theater, and his beloved wife Rosalyn.
Posted on Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:21
Jan Edward Smith '69 '72
Jan Edward Smith, 74, Glen Allen, VA (formerly of New City, NY) died on September 1, 2012. He was born in Peoria, Illinois, on November 30, 1937, and in his early years attended school in Chicago, Illinois. He completed his education in New York when his family moved from Chicago to New York City.
He served in the United States Navy from 1956 through 1960. He began classes as an evening student while working a demanding full-time job at IBM. He was elected as Vice President of the evening students in 1968. He earned a BS in Math in 1969, a MS in Industrial Engineering in 1972, and a MS in Computer Science in 1985 from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute.
Jan worked for IBM for 32 plus years primarily in New York locations, retiring in 1993. He then started a programming consulting business and continued working for an additional 10 years, finally retiring in 2003. His passions were his family, reading technical materials and The New York Times, education, listening to modern jazz, being an amateur artist, color, and all things New York.
He is survived by his wife of 52 years Harriet Hazel Smith, his daughters Sharon (Shanley W. Davis) of Henrico, VA, and Stacey (J. Eric Barnes) or Aliso Viejo, CA, a grandson (Stanley), and three granddaughters (Sydney, Mallory, and Nathalie).
Posted on Wed, 12/05/2012 - 16:10
Luigi C. Calandriello '72 '76
Luigi Calandriello, 61, of Oakwood, who was known for living life to the fullest, died Friday in Mount Sinai Hospital, Manhattan.
Born in Salerno, Italy, Mr. Calandriello was brought to the United States as a child and settled in Brooklyn. He moved to Oakwood in 1976.
A graduate of Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, Mr. Calandriello earned a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering and a master's degree in project management from Polytechnic Institute of New York in Brooklyn.
He worked as a project manager for Con Edison and then for Munoz Engineering.
Mr. Calandriello enjoyed visiting Atlantic City, playing cards with friends and going to movies. He was a fan of the New York Yankees and was a member of the Father John C. Drumgoole Council, Knights of Columbus.
Tina Marciano said her father "lived life to the fullest" and shared this Oscar Wilde quote to express that idea: "To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist. That is all."
Posted on Fri, 11/30/2012 - 15:49
In Memory of Neil Armstrong, U.S. Astronaut, 1930-2012
We worked with Neil Armstrong, U.S. astronaut, and fellow crewmen Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins for almost seven years at the NASA resident office for Project Apollo at the Grumman Aerospace Corp., designing, building and testing the Lunar Module (LM).
The LM was the first and only manned spaceship to land men on the moon. Neil was a gentleman, a U.S. Navy combat pilot, a test pilot of advanced aircraft design, a great technician and engineer, a professor, an Astronaut and a patriot. He served the United States well during the dark days of the Korean War and the Cold War, when we competed with Soviet communism for supremacy in space, and we won, technically, economically and politically. Neil will be greatly missed by his family, friends, NASA, supplier contractors, Grumman, coworkers and other astronauts. The Eagle has landed. Goodbye, Neil, and God speed on your next journey.
Submitted by five Poly aerospace engineers:
- Robert Zuckerman, Structures and Dynamics
- Anthony Liccardi, Manager
- Walter Gaylor, Chief Engineer
- Frederick A. Zito, Guidance and Navigation
- Robert Newlander, Project Engineer
Posted on Fri, 10/12/2012 - 11:36
Barry F. Fitzgerald '59 '66
It is with great sadness that the family of Barry F. Fitzgerald announces his passing on July 28, 2012. He was 75. He passed away peacefully after a courageous battle with melanoma cancer.
Barry was born on June 15, 1937, in Queens, N.Y., to his mother Elizabeth and his father William, both of whom preceded his death, as well as his brother William Jr. As a young man, Barry completed his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering at Polytechnic Institute of New York University and earned his MBA at Long Island University. He was President of American Nucleonics Corporation in Westlake Village for 11 years before retiring and consulting until about a year ago.
Throughout his life and retirement, he enjoyed fishing and boating on Long Island and his second home in Ft. Myers Beach, Fla. He loved spending time with family and had a passion for classical music and fine wines. For most of his life, Barry was a dedicated long-distance runner, having completed dozens of races and multiple half and full marathons. He continued to run daily up until the last few months of his life.
Barry's legacy to his many friends and family, who will miss him immensely, was his gentle heart, kindness, family values, work ethic and faith.
Posted on Fri, 10/12/2012 - 11:09
Edward Offenhartz '48
Edward Offenhartz, of Brooklyn, NY, died peacefully at home in Canton, CT on September 21, 2012 surrounded by his loving family. Born on March 1, 1928, Ed was a beloved son of the late Anna and Hyman Offenhartz - and brother to Harvey Offenhartz and the late Mitchell Offenhartz. In 1948, he graduated with a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering from The Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn at age twenty. In 1970, he successfully completed The Program for Management Development at the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. An accomplished Engineer and proud American, Ed was a Project Director for Development of the Heat Shield used in the Apollo Space Program, and a key player in the development of KH-9 HEXAGON (or Big Bird). While his professional accomplishments were varied and extraordinary, Ed's greatest pride was his family.
Posted on Fri, 10/12/2012 - 11:02
Stephen C. Vowinkel '91
Stephen C. Vowinkel, 62, died on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2012, at Mountainside Hospital in Glen Ridge. Born in Staten Island, N.Y., Mr. Vowinkel lived most of his life in Fair Haven, N.J., and the last seven years in Bloomfield. He was the retired vice president of H.R.I.T. for J.P. Morgan, Jersey City, N.J. He was a graduate of Monmouth University and received his master's from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute. He was a staff officer in the U.S. Coast Guard Auxilliary.
Posted on Wed, 10/03/2012 - 15:00
Buell Munson '51
Buell Munson, age 91, of Hemet, CA passed away on August 14, 2012. He was born on October 29, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Buell and Margaret Elizabeth Munson. He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1942 with a B.A. in English and Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute in 1951 with a B.E.E. in Communications. He married Ruth Alberta Horner in 1942 and moved to Spokane, Washington to work for the US Army Signal Corp as a radio technician.
In 1944, Buell enlisted in the US Navy and was assigned to a radar picket ship, destroyer DD837, (Hawkins) and saw active duty in the pacific fleet. Buell spent his 20 year career in the aero space industry starting in New York and ending in California. He left the aero space industry to become a professor at Orange Coast Community College where he taught for 10 years. He wrote and published Electronic Shop practice manual teaching his students. Upon retirement in 1980, Buell and Ruth retired to Hemet where he taught part time at Mt. San Jacinto Community College and started the electronics laboratory where again, he wrote his own lab manual.
Buell and Ruth were both very active in many projects with the Hemet United Methodist Church, the local affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness and sang with the Happy Harmoneers. In his later years, he was most happy spending time in his garden growing flowers for his wife and sitting on their porch enjoying the humming birds and wild birds that he fed on a regular basis.
Posted on Sun, 07/29/2012 - 14:03
Remembering Janett Rosenberg Trubatch ’62
As members of the Class of 1962 celebrated their 50th Reunion, they took a moment to reflect and honor the memory of those who have passed away since graduation. Among these former classmates is Janett Rosenberg Trubatch.
As the first full-time undergraduate female student to attend Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, Janett earned a B.S. in mathematics, summa cum laude. She went on to receive a PhD in theoretical physics from Brandeis University. After receiving her PhD, Trubatch had a long and fruitful career in academia, beginning at California State University and later went on to become the graduate dean and vice provost for research at Roosevelt University. Through the years, many of her classmates kept in touch and remembered her fondly as a well-respected professional who worked hard to further the roles of women and minorities in science. She, in fact, served as a principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant for the hiring, retaining and advancing of women in science.
Posted on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 10:03
Professor Anthony Janoff Wiener
Einstein said he never thought about the future because it comes soon enough. Anthony J. Wiener thought about it deeply and influentially. In 1967, Mr. Wiener, a self-described futurist, collaborated with Herman Kahn to write a 431-page book brimming with forecasts for the year 2000. Home computers? Check. Artificial organs and limbs? Check. Pagers and “perhaps even two-way pocket phones?” Why, yes! But the millennium turned without noiseless helicopters replacing taxis. Artificial moons still do not illuminate huge swaths of the Earth. And are you, too, still waiting for that predicted 13-week vacation?
Mr. Wiener — no relation to the former congressman with a similar name — died on June 19 at his home in Closter, N.J., at 81. His wife, the former Deborah Zaidner, said the cause was cardiac arrest.
The book he and Mr. Kahn wrote was “The Year 2000: A Framework for Speculation on the Next Thirty-three Years,” and its publication was a milestone in the futurism fad of the 1960s. The book combined multifarious elements, from the insights of Aristotle to sophisticated statistical analysis, to create what the authors called “a framework for speculation.” About half of its 100 predictions panned out — not including 150-year life spans or months of hibernation for humans. But accuracy mattered less than what Mr. Wiener called “reducing the role of thoughtlessness” in making societal choices. Clarification, not prophecy, was the goal.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences helped finance the study, sponsored by the Hudson Institute, for which both authors worked. Ken Weinstein, president of the institute, said Tuesday in an interview that the book was remarkable for its sophisticated methodology at a time when advanced computer modeling was still far off. More than simply extrapolating from trends observed in the 1960s, it tried to calculate “the complex and unexpected ways the future was going to be different.”
Anthony Janoff Wiener was born on July 27, 1930, in Newark and grew up in Maplewood, N.J. He set up a public address system in his high school. He and a friend once took apart a car and then rebuilt it, just to see if they could do it. He graduated from Harvard and Harvard Law School.
In 1961, Mr. Wiener was a founding member of the Hudson Institute, a research center known for Mr. Kahn’s investigations of nuclear weapons strategy. Mr. Kahn was outspoken in urging that society grapple with the consequences of nuclear war with “thinking the unthinkable.”
Mr. Wiener consulted on the future with clients as diverse as the Stanford Research Institute, NASA and Shell Oil. He worked for two years in the Nixon White House on urban policy and was a longtime editor of the journal Technology in Society. He taught for many years at what is now Polytechnic Institute of New York University.
Mr. Wiener died before his grander predictions — like finding life on other planets or settling undersea colonies — could be fulfilled. But his prophecy that fax machines would become office workhorses by 2000 hit the mark, at least until e-mail displaced them.
This article originally appeared in the New York Times.