Monday, October 14, 2024
Phil, who was my friend and colleague for 34 years, was quite simply the nicest guy you would ever want to meet. He had a special insight into human nature and his generosity of spirit led him to befriend and champion students who did not quite fit the mold. Several of these students now have PHD’s largely due to Phil, I suspect. Also, Phil was something of a visionary and appreciated the business side of things. In the 1990s, he told me about an exciting technology company, in which he had a lot of faith, and urged me to invest heavily in it, as he was doing so. I wish I had followed his suggestion with more commitment as that company was Apple Computer! It would not be an exaggeration to say that Phil’s ability as a talented communicator led to Ramapo’s science school joining the 21st century. Funding at state colleges has always been hard to come by and Ramapo was lagging with regard to its laboratories and its physical environment. But Phil was not daunted by this state of affairs and led his colleagues, Marion and Bob, on an itinerary from college-to-college, taking on-point photos of their superior teaching environments. He then made a presentation to the Ramapo Board of Trustees alternating pictures of these state-of-the-art learning environments with pictures of Ramapo’s run-down laboratories. The final photo showed a 3-foot tall iceberg inside Ramapo’s G-wing on the ground floor; the presentation had the desired effect and G-wing underwent a modernization. Above all, Phil enabled people to do more than they thought they could because he believed in them and in himself. And so, his favorite story still resonates with me. In some dystopia of the future, a group of young men are sentenced to shovel manure from a pit all day long, for eternity. Most of them are crying and discouraged but one young man is smiling. When he is asked why, he answers, “with this much manure, there must be a pony in here somewhere!” Well, Phil was that guy and if there is a multiverse, no doubt he will be serving on the Board of Directors wherever he finds himself.
