JEAN SAVITSKY, '85

Jean Savitsky, '85 was born in Queens, New York and is the daughter of first-generation parents. Both her paternal and maternal grandparents were immigrants from Ukraine. Jean's father, Dan Savitsky '52 first introduced her to Stevens, as he had joined Davidson Laboratory at Stevens in 1947, first as an engineer on staff then as the Head of Davidson Laboratory towards the end of his career which spanned over 70 years at Stevens! In this oral history clip interviewed by Stevens student Katherine Ohotin '25, Jean discusses the challenges at Stevens in her first year and the extra pressure she felt to do well with her father's esteemed reputation on campus. Jean ended up gravitating towards the program of Systems, Planning & Management, which was a newer curriculum at that time and was a combination of industrial engineering and management. In addition, she discusses being able to access the Frederick W. Taylor Collection archival materials at Stevens, which was meaningful since Frederick W. Taylor (Stevens Class of 1883) was the father of scientific management and industrial engineering. Jean talks about how she used her knowledge of industrial engineering throughout her illustrious career which first started at the Port Authority and is still going strong as she is now the Director of Real Estate and Sustainability at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, NY.

Audio Recording:
https://archive.org/details/ohotin-interview-with-jean-savistky-clip