Jerome Levy; his teaching spanned eras, time zones

JEROME LEVY

Soon after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, the Navy dispatched Jerome Levy there to train officers and technicians in the use of radar-detection equipment on planes, ships, and on the battlefield.

The military would later award him the Legion of Merit for his contributions to radar design and instruction. Under Mr. Levy's command, the Pacific Fleet Radar School trained more than 3,000 Navy, Army, and Marine electronic technicians for assignments in all theaters of war, according to the website of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.

Mr. Levy, an engineer and mathematician, a scholar and Renaissance man by many accounts, died of prostate cancer July 22 at Kaplan Family Hospice House in Danvers. He was 90.

At Brooksby Village, a retirement community in Peabody where he had lived since 2000, he was known as founder and participant of intergenerational debates - elders vs. students - and as a member of the residents' advisory council, said Meg Kerber, a resident. He also organized classical concerts at Brooksby and arranged bus trips to the symphony in Boston, she said.

On rare occasions when he discussed his military record, he sometimes voiced the regret that while he had taught in a laboratory, he was training others who would place themselves in harm's way while using radar.

"People have made the comment that Jerry's work in the Navy shortened the war," said Richard Moore of Peabody, a friend and Naval Academy graduate who served on submarines during wartime. "In those days, when Jerry was running the radar school, radar was pretty much science fiction."

Above all, friends and family said, Mr. Levy was a teacher. To the very end he was challenging students who worked as waiters in Brooksby's dining halls, giving them mathematics and word problems to be solved by the end of the meal. One of those students got into Harvard on a full scholarship, said Carolyn McIntosh, a Brooksby resident.

"Jerry was the most brilliant man I ever knew," she said. "He was a wonderful raconteur, an educator since Day One."

Among his accomplishments, Mr. Levy helped establish engineering leadership-training programs at several universities, including Tufts and Northeastern.

Last year, Mr. Levy won the Bernard M. Gordon Prize for innovation in engineering and technology education. He had created a 52-week curriculum and led in the recruitment of faculty. The prize is awarded by the National Academy of Engineering in Washington, D.C.

In an e-mail, Charles M. Vest, president of the NAE and former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said, "Engineering innovations are best accomplished through teamwork, and Levy knew this well."

Mr. Levy had won the Gordon Prize, Vest said, "for successfully fostering project management and engineering leadership skills in his students."

Gordon, namesake of the prize, had helped Mr. Levy establish the university leadership-training programs.

Michael Silevitch, professor and director of the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program at Northeastern University, described the program as "Jerry's passion. He felt that as a country we've lost the ability of creating individuals who are capable of creating advanced products and systems."

Jerome E. Levy was born in New York City. He was a bright young man, said his daughter, Ellen of Teaticket, and "always involved in everything, interested in everything."

He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in mathematics from City College of New York in 1938 and received his master of arts degree in education and mathematics from New York University in 1940.

He took his first teaching position in 1938 at DeWitt Clinton High School in New York City. He was assigned to teach remedial math, according to the engineering group's website.

"He discovered that thinking - and teaching - outside the box could reawaken his students' interest, and even a love, of mathematics," it said.

While in the service, Mr. Levy met Freda Levy of Memphis, a member of the Navy WAVES who had the same surname. They were married after the war, said their son, Richard, of New York City.

Once out of the service, Mr. Levy served for five years as a civilian training specialist and fire-control analyst with the US Navy's Bureau of Ordnance.

Around the early 1950s, he founded the Washington Engineering Services Company in Bethesda, Md., his son said. He worked on information systems, then a new field that he was instrumental in developing for the Polaris missile-defense project, among other ventures. He moved the company to the Boston area in the early 1960s to better serve the burgeoning Route 128 high-tech loop.

In 1957, according to the online profile, Mr. Levy was recruited as a consultant to MIT's Instrumentation Laboratory on guidance systems for the Polaris and Apollo programs.

Although his father was always busy, he was "warm and caring," Richard said. In Massachusetts, the family lived first in Newton and then in Magnolia. Mrs. Levy died in 1999 after 50 years of marriage.

At Brooksby, others loved to talk with Mr. Levy. One of those is John Zavaglia of Danvers, who works in Brooksby's kitchen. His wife always wondered what made Mr. Zavaglia come home so late from his shift.

"It was Jerry," Zavaglia said. "On the way out I would see Jerry and we'd start talking about everything, for hours. If you were going on a cross-country trip and you had to bring someone with you, Jerry would be in the seat beside me."

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. Levy leaves a sister, Cecile Pulin of Atlanta, and one grandson. A service has been held.