A Tribute to George G. Hazen

      

           George G. Hazen died on Thursday, 4 December 2014, in Perth Amboy, NJ. He was 91 years old.

            My dad grew up on a wheat farm near Highwood, Montana. He graduated from Fort Benton High School, did his undergraduate studies at Montana State in Bozeman, and in 1950 received a PhD in Chemistry at the University of Michigan. As a chemistry teaching assistant, he met an undergraduate from Nebraska City, Ruth Evelyn Farrell. In 1948, he married Ruth and over the next ten years they had six children. Mom died on 26 August 2013. They had just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary.

            Dad was a U.S. Navy World War II veteran. He worked as a research chemist for Merck & Co. in Danville, PA and Rahway, NJ for 40 years, before retiring in 1991.

            As my brother, Steve, wrote:

He chose Merck because he wanted to help heal those who are sick.   Among the proudest accomplishments in his professional life was his work to create an affordable manufacturing process for the drug cortisone – a drug that was considered a miracle drug when it was first discovered and is still widely used today.  The first batches of cortisone cost $8,500 for a gram of drug – prohibitively expensive for medical practice in the late 1940s.  The Merck team reduced the price per gram to $30 by 1951 and continued to refine the manufacturing process.  In 1957, he was sent to the Philippines, Australia and Holland to set up processing operations for cortisone in those countries.

International travel is a legacy and a passion that his children and grandchildren continue to enjoy.

            My dad shared many things with me, his deep faith, his love of learning, scuba diving and fine dining, to name a few. I am so grateful that some of us were able to travel to Fort Benton, Montana, for a Hazen-Holmes reunion in July. We drove to the old ranch house, which never had running water, now abandoned and surrounded by wheat fields, and enjoyed the Montanan Big Sky, with the Highwood Mountains in the distance.

            Even in his ninety-second year, Dad kept active: attending daily Mass and swimming at the Perth Amboy YMCA, and in the evening walking down a block to The Barge for a beer and the local gossip.

            I miss you, Dad. Say hi to Mom for me.