Michael Scott Waldman

On June 22, 1969 – the sexy Sixties – a little baby child was born in the ghettos … of Spring Valley and Monsey. Like the rest of his siblings, Mike Waldman was born at Good Sam. Few people know he came into the world with a heart murmur. Yet his heart would remain indomitably strong. He survived for more than a year with Stage 4 metastatic esophageal cancer, which traveled far and wide throughout his organs. His heart would simply not give up. Not to say that he slung that big heart in every direction. As in all things, Mike – nicknamed “Mickey Dub,”– was very, let’s say, particular. Fiercely independent. Private. Liked to do things his way. Sometimes lost his temper if people got in his way, to which his loving girlfriend Nikki can attest. He was a stereotypical IT guy in that way, as Saulo, his Manager, and his many colleagues from work could testify. He worked for Spectra Labs, a division of Fresenius Medical Care, for which both his sisters, Beth and Alissa also worked for in the 90s. Mike was a 32-year member of the Spectra team.

His heart belonged to work and his work family. And his friends at Plan B in Suffern, where he spent nearly every evening eating, chewing the fat, and watching his beloved Yankees, Cowboys (Boo!), Arsenal, and Stuttgart. Near which latter place, he spent a glorious few months in the mid-Eighties on two cultural-exchanges between extremely Jewish Spring Valley and Über-Deutsch Böblingen, Germany. He exchanged lots of culture with his new German friends. It was a thrilling time, full of new experiences, boundary-pushing, first love, and heavy drinking (see above: Plan B). In High School, he played in a regular high-stakes poker game with friends from Spring Valley, Ramapo, and Suffern High Schools. He’d later continue that poker tradition at Reggie Bar in Tuxedo. He attended the University of Albany (Go Danes!) where he studied German. After Albany, he spent two years in Würzburg, Germany, where he might or might not have started Dental School (again: private to the point of secretive!). Friends and relatives all talk about Mike’s pearly whites, his easy laughter, and his droll sense of humor. As quiet and low-key as Mike was, he liked to race exotic cars, frequented Las Vegas (go figure!), and found himself extraordinarily attractive to the ladies. Mike is survived by his loving girlfriend Nicole Nikki Grasty; sisters Beth Newman, Alissa Smith and husband John Smith; his nieces and nephew-in-law, Hannah and Stephen Lauro, and Ellanah Newman; his uncles, Stanley Waldman and Aunt Sylvia, and Stephen Fiss (also his godfather) and Aunt Bette; and his many cousins, Steven and Larry Spinner, Adam and David Fiss, Amy, Debbie and Elliot Fertel, and David Waldman and Denise Fitzgerald; his brothers-in-law, Mitch Newman and Blake Newhem Valenzuela and Angel Newhem Valenzuela; his friends, Keith Hale, Rick Flory, and Will Degroat. Special mention to lifelong family friends, Carol Goldsmith, Lainie Larrivee, Cheryl Stroud, Janine DiFiore, Anne Marie Conroy, Alaine Selig Carello, and old neighbors Gloria and Alex Montalban and James and Edith Safer.

Funeral services will be held at Hellman Memorial Chapels, 15 State Street, Spring Valley, NY 10977, US, on July 24, 2026, at 2:30 pm, with a live stream available at https://webcast.funeralvue.com/events/viewer/123720; all guests please arrive 30 minutes prior to the scheduled service time.

Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Hellman Memorial Chapels, 15 State Street, Spring Valley, NY 10977 (845) 356-8600 Jewish Funeral Directors