Author Archive | Ven Suresh

Norman Louis Brown (1923~2015) was born and raised in Atlantic City, NJ, and lived in Washington DC from 1957 on. He attended M.I.T. for two years before volunteering for the Army in 1943. He was stationed at Los Alamos, NM, where his job was to purify plutonium for the Nagasaki bomb. After the war, he returned to M.I.T., and then earned a PhD from Brown University.

Norman’s experience in the Army shaped so many of his later choices in life. He was proud at the time of his contribution to ending the war, but when he realized and understood the devastating death and destruction caused by the bombs, he became a peace activist. With his wife Janet Welsh Brown he participated in the March on Washington in 1963. They took their three children to protests against nuclear weapons and the War on Vietnam, from the earliest demonstrations organized by Women Strike for Peace. He continued to protest wars and injustice throughout his life.

Norman worked at G.E. in NY, then at the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, DC, but with his marriage in 1957 and the birth of his first child, he shifted his career path, and in all of his subsequent jobs he applied his scientific training to the solution of human problems, at first addressing hunger, and later in the development and application of small scale and renewable energy technologies in developing countries. He worked at the Bureau of Commercial Fisheries, the National Academy of Sciences, the Department of Energy, and the Agency for International Development.

After retirement from the government, he worked as a consultant for AID, the World Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and other international organizations. His work took him to Sub-Saharan Africa and North Africa, the Middle East, South and Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Norman served on the founding board of the Shakespeare Festival, a free, professional-quality theater that held performances at the amphitheater on the Washington Monument grounds during the 1960s and ’70s, and he designed, built and ran the theater’s sound system in its second season. He served also on the board of Neighbors, Inc, which supported the racial integration of Washington’s Shepherd Park neighborhood, where the family lived.

Norman was a self-taught cabinet maker, plumber, carpenter, electrician and musician. He taught himself to play the recorder, and played music with friends in what he called the Lower Iris Street Chamber Music Society. Norman served on the founding board of the Selma Levine School of Music. He built two beautiful walnut bureaus which are still in use 57 years later. With family and friends, he built a second home in the woods in Pennsylvania, guided by a carpenter neighbor with whom he later went into business as a sheep farmer. He built his first computer from a “Heath Kit” in the early 1980s, and encouraged his colleagues and friends to join the computer age. He encouraged his children to undertake ambitious science projects, including a garbage-fueled home methane generator. He was always willing to advise and help neighbors and friends with repairs and other projects.

Norman is survived by his wife of 58 years, Janet Welsh Brown, and three children and their families: Leah Brown of Washington, Mira Brown of Boston and Ian Brown of Seattle. He is survived also by an extended and loving family. Norman died peacefully at home, early on November 7, 2015.

Alfredo Perez, 83, of Sheffield, MA died peacefully on December 18. Born in New York City, he graduated from Columbia College and Columbia University Graduate School of Business.

After serving in the U.S. Navy he had an extensive career in public service, most notably as deputy CEO of Planned Parenthood; acting director of the U.S. Peace Corps; president of the college, The Experiment in International Living and its School for International Training; U.S. Agency for International Development; and Senior Vice President, Management of Family Health International, supervising programs with USAID for controlling the AIDS epidemic in developing countries.

Charming and courtly, Alfredo was a gentle, loving man, compassionate, caring and always there for you. An avid reader, he had a love of good conversation, strong coffee, and music – classical, jazz, flamenco, and bluegrass. His greatest love was for his family – his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. He is survived by his wife, Ann-Marie Light, daughters, Carole Montanari and Xanne Perez; sons, Tom, Robbie and Michael Perez; twelve grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren; brother, George Peters; and his first wife, Florence Perez.

Shari Berenbach, a former official with the U.S. Agency for International Development who had served as president of the U.S. African Development Foundation since 2012, died Feb. 7 at her home in Bethesda, Md. She was 64.

The cause was breast cancer, said her husband, James Heaney.

Ms. Berenbach was the director of the Microenterprise and Private Enterprise Promotion office at USAID for two years before joining the African Development Foundation, an independent federal agency that awards grants to community groups and small businesses on the continent.

At both agencies, she focused on microfinance initiatives, which provide low-income individuals and small businesses with loans and other financial services.

From 1997 to 2010, she served as president of the Calvert Foundation, a nonprofit investment company in Bethesda started by the founders of the Calvert Group mutual fund company. Under her direction, the organization grew to invest more than $500 million in nonprofits and small businesses around the world with the aim of reducing poverty.

Shari Sue Berenbach was born Sept. 17, 1951, in Los Angeles. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1974 with a bachelor’s degree in political science. She received a master’s degree in Latin American studies from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1982 and an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1990.

Ms. Berenbach began her microfinance work in the early 1980s as a program director for the now-defunct Partnership for Productivity International, a Washington-based nonprofit that trained and advised entrepreneurs around the world.

She served on boards and committees for groups such as the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the Association for Enterprise Opportunity, a microbusiness advocacy group.

In addition to her husband of 23 years, survivors include their daughter, Moriah Heaney, also of Bethesda; a brother; and a sister.

On February 20, 2016, Edwin J. (Ed) Cohn died peacefully at home in Washington, DC., a day shy of his 95th birthday. Born in Cambridge, MA, in 1921, Ed attended Shady Hill School and graduated from the Phillips Exeter Academy. He received an A.B. from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

Ed served in the field of international-development economics at the State Department and the Agency for International Development, including postings at the Hague, in Turkey, and in Afghanistan. While in Turkey, he also served as an advisor to the Turkish parliament and taught economics at the Middle East Technical University.

His intellectual curiosity and passion for knowledge and learning extended throughout his life. After he retired, Ed read widely and, together with his wife Kath, traveled extensively, focusing on his lifelong interest in the interrelationships among economy, society, culture, and politics in various parts of the world, with particular attention to the historic and contemporary forces that affect the emergence of democracy. An accomplished linguist, he spoke French, Spanish, German, and Turkish. For the last 20 years, he derived great pleasure and satisfaction from participating in classes at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at American University, where he also developed many rewarding friendships.

Ed is survived by his daughter Sue Cohn of Washington, DC; son Dan Cohn of Sanibel Island, FL; grandchildren Michael, Amanda, Vance, Alec, Julia, and Katherine; companion Regina Hablutzel; son-in-law Larry Novey and daughter-in-law Candy Hutchings Cohn; and numerous other relatives and friends. Ed was predeceased by his wife of 46 years, Katherine Sloss Cohn.

Jeffery Anthony Malick, 72, passed away peacefully on February 17th, 2016 while on a cruise in the Caribbean with his beloved wife and friends. He was born on March 10th, 1943 in Kingston, Jamaica to George and Sylvia Malick.

Jeff grew up in Kingston, Jamaica until age 11, when his family immigrated to Queens, New York. He graduated from Andrew Jackson high school in 1960 and Queens College in 1965. Shortly after college, he joined the Peace Corps in 1965, where he served as a volunteer and staff in Nepal for over 7 years. In 1976, Jeff joined the US Agency for International Development (USAID), where he worked for 22 years, serving in India, Pakistan, Egypt, and Washington D.C. before retiring in 1998. He was known for his compassion, empathy and humor in both his work and personal lives.

Jeff married Susan in November of 1969 in Kathmandu, Nepal, and they were happily married for over 46 years. In addition to being an active member of his church, Jeff enjoyed mentoring others, traveling with his wife, attending baseball games, and visiting his grandchildren.

Jeff is survived by his spouse (whom he affectionately like to call his “bride”) Susan Malick of Vienna, VA; his children Ravi Malick (wife Helen) of Dallas, TX; Laura Malick of Brooklyn, NY; and Benjamin Malick of Washington, D.C.; his sister Carole Visveshwara (husband Vish) of Fresno, CA; his grandchildren Isabella, Miles, and Aaron Malick; and his nieces, nephews and other relatives.

Charles Richard “Chuck” Rheingans, 71, of Fredericksburg passed away Tuesday, July 17, 2012 at VCU Hospital in Richmond.

Mr. Rheingans was a member of St. Mary Catholic Church. Chuck, who grew up in Plainview, Minnesota joined the Peace Corps in 1962 where he served in Thailand for two years. He then joined the U.S. Agency for International Development in 1964 where he worked in Agricultural Development. He served in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines and returned to the US to finish his 35 year career. After retirement, Chuck pursued a second career selling long-term care insurance for Genworth.

Chuck’s legacy will be carried through his family, friends and co-workers who will always remember his warm smile. He touched the lives of everyone he met. Survivors include his wife, Kathleen, sons Chad and wife Lisa, and Tony; daughter Julie; brothers Randy and wife Pam, and Dean and wife Sue; sisters Linda Richter and husband Dale, and Mary Brooks and husband Pat; and four grandchildren Aidan, Hailey, Layla and Gavin.

David Levintow, 89, of Lyme died Feb. 18, 2016, at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center of complications from a bone marrow disease.

He was born in Philadelphia, Pa., on June 15, 1926, son of Benjamin and Dora (Melnicoff). He married Arsenia Gonzalez in 1951, who predeceased him in 2003. He served during World War II in the Army Air Corps from 1944-45, graduated from Antioch College in 1950 with a B.A. in Government, and earned his M.A. in Development Economics from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1970.

From 1958 to 1984 he served with the U.S. Agency for International Development as a Foreign Service Officer, retiring as a career member of the Senior Foreign Service with the rank of Counselor. He and Arsenia raised their four children in his various overseas postings including the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Iran, Turkey, Vietnam, Liberia, Afghanistan and Ghana. His Washington, DC tours included serving as Director for the Pakistan and Nepal Office, and in the Bureau for Private Enterprise. He also served on the US delegation to the Asian Development Bank and helped to establish the U.S. Trade and Development Agency.

After his Foreign Service career, he worked in Washington, DC for the Institute for Public-Private Partnerships, the Center for Financial Engineering in Development, and the Center for Privatization. In this effort, he served as a development economist advising government officials in over 30 countries on public sector reform strategies that involved public-private partnerships. He conducted capacity-building workshops and seminars on project design, procurement, contract monitoring, and regulatory governance. This included a broad range of projects including extending public services to former black townships in South Africa, advising Indonesia on facilitating foreign direct investment, advising the governorates of Alexandria and Cairo in Egypt on solutions for solid waste management, and many other public sector reform and anti-poverty initiatives.

After his wife Arsenia died, he relocated to Lyme where he enjoyed a long and active ‘On Golden Pond’ phase, which included biking, kayaking, canoeing and the pleasures of stoking his wood stove with logs he had stacked himself. He was raised in the Jewish tradition, but after moving to Lyme he joined the Lyme Congregational Church where he served on the Outreach Committee and on the Board. He was also an active member of “Those Guys,” a men’s service organization in Lyme.

He is survived by his daughter Alexandra Howell (and her husband Peter Tenney) of Lyme; and his three sons Nicholas (and his wife Katharina), Christopher, and Anthony; and his grandchildren Cameron, Nathan, and Caroline Howell; and Sara, David, and Christopher Levintow. His brother Leon predeceased him in 2014.

He had many favorite sayings, but often said that his life’s goal could be summed up in the famous quotation from the American educator Horace Mann: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”*

Gaylord Walker, age 91, died peacefully and courageously in his McLean, VA home on March 21, 2016 of Parkinsons Disease. Survivors include two sons, Lawrence of Prescott, Arizona and Mark of Emmitsburg, MD; and three grandchildren, Justin, John and Violet. His wife of 54 years, Joanne Smith Walker, preceded him in death in 2005.

Born on March 2, 1925 in Idabel, Oklahoma, he was the son of Thomas Byrd and Nola Anderson Walker. Gaylord attended Washington-Lee High School in Arlington, VA and was a graduate of the University of Virginia with a Bachelors degree in Foreign Affairs. He studied at the University in Gernoble, France, where he met and courted his wife Joanne.

He was accepted into the rigorous V-12 Navy College Training Program for officers at Mt. St. Mary”s College during World War II and served on the Japanese front as commanding officer of the LST-1080. Later, he was one of the first to fly over Nagasaki following the detonation of the atomic bomb in August of 1945.

Gaylord”s professional career as a Foreign Service Officer with USAID spanned 20 years in developing countries including Cambodia, Thailand, Morocco, Tunisia, and Ethiopia. He and his family immersed themselves in the culture of indigenous locals, camped in the Sahara Desert, traveled by elephant, and assisted MEDICO in war-ravaged Cambodia. He hunted in wildlife safaris, pulled through a bout with malaria, and sailed extensively in the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and the Eastern Seaboard. Many noteworthy tales also came out of his involvement with the rescue mission of the USS Liberty during the 6 day war in the summer of ’67.

Gaylord was a cultured and adventurous man who enjoyed photography, traveling, scuba diving, American history, astronomy, and even belonged to an opera club. He had a penchant for living: he lived right and he lived well. Gaylord, the quintessential gentleman, with such aplomb and diplomacy, will be remembered for his virtuous ways by all who knew him. He was the embodiment of “The Greatest Generation” and a principled man. Truly he leaves a legacy of goodwill, professional achievement and moral character to those who succeed him. His example will continue to inspire for years to come. Gaylord”s own reflections speak for themselves in his headstone epithet which reads: “Thanks be to God for a wonderful life.”

Retired United States Ambassador Donald Boyd Easum, 92, died of natural causes on April 16, 2016 in Summit, N.J.

Ambassador Easum’s work, advocacy, humanitarian efforts, activism, collaborations and friendships spanned decades and continents. A career in the Foreign Service brought Mr. Easum, and often his family, into circumstances and environments very different from his native U.S. He witnessed war, revolution, famine and environmental crises but never lost his innate optimism and unfailing sense of humor. He continued writing, speaking and travelling into his late 80s.

A World War II veteran, teacher, diplomat, and writer, Mr. Easum was also a fine trumpet and cornet player and enjoyed both choir directing and singing. He was also an avid gardener and tennis player. He found his greatest joy in his four children — who were each born in different countries — and his nine grandchildren.

Mr. Easum was born in Culver, Ind., August 27, 1923. He was raised in Madison, Wis., where his father was a professor and Chairman of the history department at the University of Wisconsin, and his mother was a church organist. He graduated cum laude in 1942 from the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn. In 1947, Mr. Easum received a Bachelor of Arts degree in history from the University of Wisconsin, where he was a member of the varsity tennis team, the band and orchestra, Phi Kappa Phi and Phi Beta Kappa. He was awarded the school’s Kenneth Sterling Day award for scholarship, athletics and character.

He served in the Pacific theater during World War II, including 10 months on Iwo Jima in the U.S. Army Air Force. Mr. Easum passed on the opportunity to play in the military band, since he felt he would learn more in the communication systems squadron, signaling and guiding aircraft from the airfield control tower. Indeed, even 50 years after the war, he was known to impress his children by tapping out the alphabet in Morse code and identifying the myriad friendly and belligerent aircraft from silhouettes. Following his service from 1942-1946, he taught secondary school at the John Burroughs School in St. Louis and then joined The New York Times as a city news reporter.

In 1950, Mr. Easum received Master in Public Affairs and Master of Arts degrees from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. Following studies at London University on a Fulbright scholarship, and in Buenos Aires on a Doherty Foundation grant and Penfield fellowship, he earned a doctorate in international politics from Princeton in 1953.

Mr. Easum entered the U.S. Foreign Service in 1953. During basic training at the Foreign Service Institute, his hesitation, on principle, to state that he was anti-communist delayed his security clearance and thus an overseas diplomatic assignment, for more than a year. During this time however, he met and married Augusta Pentecost of Gadsden, Ala., who had served as a Foreign Service secretary and consular assistant in the U.S. embassies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Madrid, Spain. Together they had four children.

Mr. Easum spent 27 years in the U.S. Foreign Service at posts in Nicaragua, Indonesia, Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Burkina Faso (Ambassador 1971-1974) and Nigeria (Ambassador, 1975-1979). He was given the Department of State’s Meritorious Service Award for his work in Indonesia. As Ambassador to Upper Volta (now Burkina Faso), Mr. Easum was bestowed the title of Commandeur de l’Ordre National by the host government for his leadership of international famine relief activities.

While Ambassador in Nigeria, Mr. Easum was instrumental in turning around previously acrimonious relations with the U.S., and his influence contributed to the country’s first successful transition from a military regime to a democratically elected government, based on the U.S. model. Other notable achievements of which he was proud were his hosting of Jimmy Carter on the first-ever state visit of a U.S. President to Sub-Saharan Africa, and visits from U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Reverend Andrew Young.

During the Nixon/Ford Administration, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, working tirelessly to avoid greater conflict in southern Africa. In all, he devoted more than three decades of his professional career to the improvement of U.S. relations with Africa.

Earlier State Department assignments included Executive Secretary for the Agency for International Development, and Staff Director of the National Security Council’s Interdepartmental Group for Latin America.

A competitive but friendly tennis and ping pong player, he promoted diplomacy via both of those sports, persuading Chinese officials to fund coaching for promising Voltaïque table-tennis players, and then helping to organize the first professional tennis tournament in West Africa, featuring international greats Arthur Ashe and Stan Smith, among others.

His distinguished career extended beyond his years with the U.S. Department of State. Upon retiring from the Foreign Service in 1980 with the rank of Career Minister, Mr. Easum assumed the presidency of the Africa-America Institute in New York (1980-1988). This work was followed by more than 20 years of international lecturing, non-profit Board memberships and activism on behalf of global understanding and human rights causes.

In 1991, he designed and taught a foreign policy seminar at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He accompanied his students to South Africa on a two-week study of models for a post-apartheid constitution. Introducing his students to Nelson Mandela was a highlight of that trip.

From 1990 to 1995, Mr. Easum was Vice President and Senior Program Consultant of the River Blindness Foundation. He organized the Foundation’s offices throughout Nigeria and was the principal drafter and negotiator of the pioneer agreement with the government for nationwide eradication of the river blindness disease (onchocerciasis) affecting some 12 million Nigerians. This pilot program was later adopted by the Carter Center and deployed on a global scale.

Mr. Easum was Senior Fellow at Yale University’s Stimson Seminar from 1999 to 2004. In April 2003, he served on the National Democratic Institute’s observer team for presidential elections in Nigeria.

He was a member of the Boards of the WorldSpace Foundation, the Rothko Chapel in Houston, the American School of Tangier/Marrakech, Renewable Energy for African Development, Friends of Boys Town South Africa, Volunteers in Technical Assistance, Pact Inc., and Vice President of Global Business Access. He was a member of the Corporate Council on Africa, the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, the American Foreign Service Association, the Council on Foreign Relations, Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change and the American Academy of Diplomacy.

Mr. Easum was predeceased by his wife, Augusta Pentecost Easum in 1992. He is survived by his four children and nine grandchildren: Jefferson Easum of Mexico City, his wife Alessandra and their children Nicole and André; David Easum of Lagos, Nigeria, his daughter Lauren, his partner Karine and their son Tom; Susan Easum Greaney of Scotch Plains, N.J., her husband Michael and their children Charlotte, Claire and Scott; John Easum of Tokyo, his wife Laila and their children Maya and Zachary; and sister Janet Easum Bay of Traverse City, Mich.