Lawrence Levy served the Kennedy administration.
Amid the Cold War boom in defense contracts and frenzied research into aeronautics and space travel, Lawrence Levy launched Concord-based Allied Research Associates Inc. when he was a 28-year-old instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The company mushroomed from three men in 1951 to more than 225 employees worldwide in eight years, catapulting Mr. Levy to the forefront of national defense designs, diplomacy circles, and later, solar energy development.
The Kennedy administration sent him to live in Paris and advise Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on Europe and North Africa. He was also named defense minister to Thomas K. Finletter, the US ambassador to NATO.
At cocktail parties in those days, Mr. Levy was known as a handsome, charming raconteur who loved to tell a good joke, but never spoke much about his work because most of it was classified, according to his family.
Mr. Levy, whose company was later acquired by Boeing Corp., died of pneumonia May 7 in Massachusetts General Hospital. He was 90 and had lived in Framingham.
“He always said he wanted to live to be 100 and get shot by a jealous husband,” said his oldest daughter, Madelyn Renee, an opera singer who lives in Milan.
The line captured Mr. Levy’s joie de vivre during a lifetime spanning his service in World War II as a flight engineer in what was then Burma to work in his 80s as a management consultant for a firm he started called Northern Ventures Corp. in Cambridge.
After his death, his family began uncovering surprising details of his career from boxes of personal papers and yellowed newspaper clips tucked away at his home.
In a 1959 article from the Boston Sunday Herald, Mr. Levy offered prescient remarks about the future of space travel. “Lunar Landing in less than 10 years, Newton scientist forecasts,” the headline read.
“Who knows what we’ll discover — new metals; perhaps a new source of energy, heating and lighting homes and factories for a small cost; things to make life on Earth better,” Mr. Levy told the paper. “And when man arrives on the moon, it’ll be a stepping stone to other planets.”
Through his papers, his family also learned about his work on secret postwar nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. From 1949 to 1951, Mr. Levy was a project director working on a military program created to determine the effects of atomic blasts on planes delivering the bombs.
His papers also revealed he managed research programs for NATO in computers, electronics, and operations and helped formulate Raytheon’s sale of Hawk missiles to Saudi Arabia in the 1960s as a vice president of the company.
Meanwhile, his Allied Research briefly became a subsidiary of the Boeing Corp. at the end of 1950s. Then in 1965, Mr. Levy made news when he was rehired by his old company and named president. He formed a British affiliate called Allied Systems and found success selling the aircraft known as the Harrier, a vertical take-off attack jet, to the Marines.
By the late 1970s, Mr. Levy shifted his focus from war machines to solar energy. He became president of Northern Energy Corp. with its Solar Energy Center, one of four regional centers created by the US Department of Energy to promote solar applications.
“Larry could pick up the phone and speak to any congressman, any senator on the Hill at that time,” recalled Joanne Luongo, who began as a secretary for Northern Energy 37 years ago and climbed the ranks. She was still working with Mr. Levy at Northern Ventures when he died.
“He was my teacher, my mentor, my best friend, and a gentleman at all times,” she said.
Mr. Levy always wore a suit and tie, and liked to work at “warp speed” each day, Luongo recalled, “but he didn’t stand over you with a bat. He was always pleasant. In 37 years that man never raised his voice to me, never. He gave you credit for having a mind. He was a teacher in his own inimitable way.”
A New York City native, Mr. Levy was the oldest child of Anna and Albert Levy, who was an accountant.
A bright student, he graduated from high school at 15, and received a bachelor’s degree in engineering from New York University. He was in ROTC in college and joined the Army Air Force during World War II, serving as a lieutenant.
After the war, he went to MIT under the GI Bill and graduated with a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering in 1948.
His marriage to Jacqueline Friedman ended in divorce. They had three daughters.
Mr. Levy was married for 43 years to Ruthe McClenon.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he leaves two other daughters, Janice of Ithaca, N.Y.; and Sharon Loeff of Scottsdale, Ariz.; a grandson; and two granddaughters.
A service was held and burial was in Sharon Memorial Park.
Mr. Levy held a pilot’s license for most of his life and was a lifelong lover of photography. Among his cameras was a Rolleicord he bought in China that had once belonged to a Japanese general, he told his family.
His daughter Janice, who is a professor of photography and cinema at Ithaca College, said she has begun sifting through his negatives dating back to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the 1930s.
As young girls, Mr. Levy’s daughters sometimes became annoyed at his ever-present camera, Janice said. Now she can see the artistry he brought to those snapshots.
“I realized, once I became a photographer, there was a real vision there,” she said. “He was very charismatic and fun.”
J.M. Lawrence can be reached at jmlawrence@me.com.
Kenneth David Schneid, age 51, of Medway, MA,passed away surrounded by his loving family, on May 6, 2014. Devoted and Beloved husband of Paula (Poillucci) Schneid. Loving son of Carol Sparber and the late Morton Schneid. Loving brother of Mark Schneid and his wife Susan, and Dana Simmons. Dear son in law of Catherine (Antonellis) and Lewis Poillucci. Cherished uncle of Austin and Zachary Simmons, Michael and Corey Schneid, Nicole, Brittany and Alysa Poillucci, Ross and Jordan Cooperstein. Dear great uncle of Anthony Joseph Poillucci. Kenny was an extraordinary man who was taken from us much too soon. He loved and lived life to the fullest. We will honor Kenny with a celebration of his life on Saturday, May 10, 2014,from 1-4pm, at 29 Sudbury Restaurant, 29 Hudson Rd., Sudbury, MA. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to Boston Strong, New York Tough Fundraiser, c/o The Greg Hill Foundation, PO Box103, Hopkinton, MA 01748.www.sharingcounts.com/events/231-boston-strong-new-york-tough
A. Ronald Chase
