Arthur H Nelson

For over 65 years, Arthur Nelson was one of Boston’s leading entrepreneurs founding over twenty diverse Massachusetts companies in technology, real estate, international management, and education. Along the way he mentored hundreds of entrepreneurs in what has only recently become known as the innovation economy.

Born in Lawrence, Kansas in 1923, Nelson graduated from the University of Kansas in 1943 with a degree in physics. As a Naval officer he was stationed during WWII at MIT’s “Rad Lab” working on the development of the first AWACS radar planes and high frequency radar.

After the war, Nelson obtained his law degree from Harvard and immediately began founding companies starting with Cambridge-based General Electronics Laboratories (GEL). In 1954 he founded Associates for International Research, Inc., (AIRINC), also based in Cambridge, which continues to this day as the leading provider of international staffing data - counting 400 of the Fortune 500 as clients. In 1965 Nelson founded Technical Education Research Centers (TERC) which recently celebrated 50 years as a leading innovator in math and science education. Many of today’s scientists first discovered their passion for science in a TERC created primary or secondary school course. There will be many more among the 3.5 million students who will take a TERC course this year.

In the 1980s, Nelson envisioned a new kind of workplace -- one that would better integrate work and personal life. Based in the City of Waltham, with its history as home of the American industrial revolution, the Nelson Companies developed Prospect Hill Executive Office Park with the first-in-the-nation, on-site, full-day kindergarten and child care center. It also featured fitness facilities, exercise trails in the nearby forest, a luxury hotel and restaurant. When the Internet was still known as the World Wide Web, Nelson offered Prospect Hill’s 50-mile view for a critical microwave internet link between Bedford and MIT and in so doing, it became the first office park in the country to be able to offer high speed internet access to commercial tenants.

Nelson’s endeavors over the years were split evenly between profit and non-profit interests. He co- founded over a dozen non-profit organizations, many of them in Waltham, including the Charles River Museum of Industry, Historic Waltham, Inc., the American Innovation Institute, the Boston Computer Foundation, and the 128 Business Council.

Arthur and his late wife Eleanor Thomas Nelson raised their family in Weston in a house designed and built for them by prominent local architect Henry Hoover. Arthur loved the house with its view of the Boston skyline and lived in it for 57 years until the time of his death. Arthur was an avid walker on the Weston forest trails and on the shores of his summer house in Cataumet. He was an active tennis player, sports fan and traveled extensively with Eleanor.

Arthur is survived by brother, Stanley; son, Carl, and his wife, Christine; daughter, Frances McSherry and her husband, Michael; daughter Pamela and her husband, Stephen Pyne; and grandchildren Scott, Eleanor, Patrick, Paul, Mollie, Tim and Christopher.

A celebration of Arthur’s life will be held on Thursday, January 14. 2016 at 9:30 AM at the First Parish Church of Weston. In lieu of flowers, please consider making a donation in his memory to The Weston Forest and Trail Association, 266 Glen Rd, Weston, MA 02493 or the Bourne Conservation Trust, PO Box 203, Cataumet, MA 02534.