Arnold Reisman was an engineer, management professor, sculptor and author: obituary

The eclectic Arnold Reisman survived the Holocaust, helped design telescopes and power plants, taught management at Case Western Reserve University, fought health insurance hikes and baseball’s free agents, chronicled Turkish history, made furniture and exhibited sculptures. He died April 11 at the Cleveland Clinic from complications of quadruple bypass surgery. He was 78.

«Through his remarkable work, Professor Reisman… brought people of diverse backgrounds closer together and enlightened many,» Namik Tan, Turkish ambassador to the U.S., wrote to the professor’s family.

Reisman was born in Lodz, Poland. He fled the Nazis, endured a year in Siberia, found his father in one part of Russia and reunited him with his mother in another. The family reached New York in 1946.

He got a doctoral degree in engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles. He became a municipal engineer, worked on many projects and became an associate professor.

In 1968, he moved to Shaker Heights and began 26 years as a professor of operations research at Case Western’s Weatherhead School of Management. He rose to chair his department.

Reisman testified or consulted for several state, federal and private organizations, from the Ohio Department of Insurance to baseball’s St. Louis Cardinals. He helped Soviet tire factories enter the free market. He found that the first free agent ballplayers were poor investments. He urged Blue Cross to fight healthcare inflation instead of passing it on to customers.

He served as a visiting professor in Turkey, Israel, Hawaii and elsewhere. He wrote about 300 articles and 24 books, several about Turkey’s relationships with Jews and a pending one about its conflict with Armenia.

Reisman made big, abstract sculptures. He exhibited at the Galleria, Agnon School and elsewhere. He sculpted a two-ton block of stone at Istanbul’s Sabanci University. He organized a show in 1992 of modern Russian artists at Cleveland Play House and the Beck Center.

Survivors include his wife, the former Ellen Kronheim; three of his four daughters; 11 great-grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. Berkowitz-Kumin-Bookatz handled his private arrangements.

by Grant Segall

Sourtce: Cleveland.com

See:  Arnold Reisman y sus libros sobre Turquía and  “Turkey’s Unknown Schindlers” by Arnold Reisman

 

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