In Memoriam: Raymond Frankel, MIT '43 | 2018 | News

In Memoriam: Raymond Frankel, MIT '43
Ray Frankel group photo

In Memoriam: Raymond Frankel, MIT '43.

 

photo: (L-R)  Belinda Frankel, Claude Canizares (MIT), Raymond Frankel, Professor Barry Posen (Director, MIT Security Studies Program) and Professor Deborah Fitzgerald (MIT)

Photo taken during the 2013 MIT Senior Congressional and Executive Office Staff Seminar

The Security Studies Program is saddened to hear of the passing of Raymond Frankel, MIT '43.  Ray was a supporter, counselor, and friend of the program for many years.  He conceived of and funded the Frankel MIT Global Policy Fund, which underwrites our efforts to bring SSP's research to policy audiences, including the biennial Congressional Staff Seminar.  As an undergraduate, Ray was elected President of the Debating Society in 1941.  He served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific in World War II, contributed to the birth of the State of Israel, became an early venture capitalist at the dawn of solid state electronics, and then moved into a successful career in asset management.   Ray was an inveterate and intrepid traveler: when he wanted to know more about another country, he visited it, regardless of its politics.  He will be sorely missed.  Our sincere condolences to his family. 

New York Times obituary