Marvin C. Grossman, 89, of Newton died on Friday, March 22, 2019. Marvin grew up in Caldwell, New Jersey, where he lived with a large, extended family that included aunts, uncles and his great uncle Phillip. Philip, the family patron and an immigrant from Ukraine, literally embodied the rags to riches myth. He turned a business peddling clothes from a pushcart into a menswear manufacturing firm.
Marvin developed a lifelong fascination with all things electronic and mechanical. He played with a large train set and, in high school, built a tesla coil, an electronic device that--he recalled recently, when other details of his life had dimmed—-produced a 17,000-volt lightning bolt. He learned the Morse code, a requirement to obtaining a coveted shortwave, or ham radio, license. Later in life he would invite guests to his basement ham shack, where he delighted in talking to distant radio operators using his call letters W1AZG, which, for clarity he enunciated as whisky one alpha Zulu golf. His ham nickname: Mable Able Roger Victor.
An English teacher encouraged Marvin to apply to MIT. A meritocracy, MIT did not engage in anti-Semitic restrictions practiced then at other upper-tier schools. He received a degree in electrical engineering in 1951. Several classmates became his closest friends and associates. He went on to receive a Masters of Business Administration at Harvard.
Marvin began his career in the high-tech, consumer-electronics industry of the 1950s and 1960s: high-fidelity (hi-fi) audio, when stereo receivers and amplifiers were first introduced. He started out working at the pioneering U.S. hifi manufacturer H. H. Scott, founded by a fellow MIT grad. He went on to found nearly one dozen consumer-electronics sales companies representing Scott, Pioneer, Aiwa and many other producers. Before national chains dominated retail, companies needed such representatives to sell their products to independent stores and regional chains. Marvin joined the personal computer revolution when companies began introducing desktop computers for broad consumer use. For several years he represented Apple in New England. He picked Steve Jobs up at Logan airport when Apple introduced its pathbreaking Mac at John Hancock Hall in 1984.
Marvin valued science and science education above almost all else throughout his life. In mid-career, while continuing to run his business, he studied science education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. The manufacturers he represented, who might have concluded that he was not giving them his full attention, were kept in the dark. He received an EdD in the late 1970s. His dissertation involved producing Cozmics, a pilot television program about science for children that aired on WCVB. After retiring from his electronics sales business in his 60s, he joined the staff at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. He helped develop a hands-on astronomy curriculum for children, which was test-piloted in schools around the country.
Marvin made major contributions to institutions that fueled his passions late into his life. He was treasurer of the Ford Hall Forum, the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fair and Temple Israel of Boston. He was on the board of the Boston Museum of Science and Newton’s New Arts Center. He helped to found, and continued to play an active role almost until his death in, a fund that his MIT class created that gives professors support for innovative curricula. He created and donated money to pay for a permanent fund that supports educational activities for children at the MIT Museum.
Marvin leaves behind his sister Carol Levy; Joanne, a loving wife of 66 years; his children Julie Grossman (Perry Thompson), Dan Grossman (Sarah Bansen) and Laura Mernoff (Stephen); his grandchildren Thomas, Barbara and Ben Grossman-Thompson, Noah and Rebecca Grossman, Rachel and Gabriel Mernoff. Encouraged by his love of learning, all of his descendants have been inspired to pursue higher education.
Services at Temple Israel, 477 Longwood Ave., (parking on the Riverway) on Monday, March 25 at 11AM. Burial will follow at Sharon Memorial Park, 40 Dedham St., Sharon and a shiva will follow, at the Orchard Cove community, on Route 138 in Canton.
In lieu of flowers, remembrances may be made to the Grossman Fund at MIT. (Checks payable to MIT, with reference, in the memo portion of the check, to Grossman Fund 3144600. Donations should be sent to MIT Annual Fund, 600 Memorial Drive, W98-200, Cambridge, MA 02139)
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