Florence Ajamian

With sadness, we announce that Miss Florence Ajamian passed away, at her home in Santa Monica, CA on July 22, 2022. She turned 105th birthday this past May and continued to display her quick wit throughout the celebration!

She had an incredible life and an incredible resume, working for several giants in US industry, including as assistant head of publicity for Max Factor; assistant to the CEO of Trans Caribbean Airlines, an East-Cost airline serving the New York to Caribbean routes; assistant to Alexander de Seversky, aircraft designer and founder of military aircraft manufacturer Seversky Aircraft Corporation; and a long tenure as chief speechwriter and right-hand-person for industrialist and philanthropist Dr. Armand Hammer, Chairman, CEO and Founder of Occidental Petroleum. Through her work with Dr. Hammer, she liaised with a list of world leaders; royalty; titans of science and industry that would be difficult to duplicate in today's age. On one project, to make communicating easier, she learned Mandarin Chinese in just a few months. After Dr. Hammer's death, she went on to become Development Director for his charitable organization "Stop Cancer" which created "seed" grants for USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center; UCLA Johnson Comprehensive Cancer Center; and the City of Hope. These seed grants allowed medical researchers, working on a great "idea" enough funding to get that research to the next level, where they could apply for much larger grants from the National Institute of Health and other funding organizations. Long before monoclonal antibodies became a real-world treatment for COVID 19 and other potential ailments, she followed the progress being made through Stop Cancer.

She was the epitome of a dignified lady. She was proud of her Armenian heritage. She was an intellectual who had knowledge and curiosity about a wide variety of subjects.

She was always elegantly dressed and stood out wherever she went. Prior to the pandemic, you rarely saw her without a hat and sometimes a pair of gloves.

In a world full of impressive people, she was truly one-of-a-kind. She was loved and respected by many...and will be greatly missed.