Stephen Michael Pollock (Steve), beloved husband of Bettina (Tina), died Nov. 13. He is survived by Tina as well as their three sons; Josh (Annette Sandretto) of Ann Arbor, Aaron (Emily Yu) of San Francisco, and Ethan (Amy Mendillo) of Providence, RI and four grandchildren; Lucas, Zachary, Nadia and Hannah.
Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, in the 1940s and ’50s, he attended the storied Madison High School. His father, Meyer, was a professional violinist who played with Toscanini and was in the radio orchestra for Orson Welles’ famous War of the Worlds broadcast. His mother, Frances, was a music teacher in the New York Public Schools.
Steve went to Cornell to study in a newly developing field called engineering physics. His undergraduate adviser was Hans Bethe, who Steve didn’t realize until much later, as he put it, was the Hans Bethe.
After college he went to graduate school at MIT where he met Tina while she was working in Harvard Square and attending The Boston Museum School. They soon married and remained married for over 63 years. After graduation he worked on the technical team for Arthur D. Little, Inc, before moving on to a teaching position at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.
In 1969 Steve joined the faculty at the University of Michigan, where he was a professor of operations and industrial engineering and became a fan of the Wolverines football and basketball teams.
While at U-M he applied operations research and decision analysis methods to problems in defense, criminal justice, manufacturing, epidemiology and medicine.
As a professor and department chair he was a devoted teacher and mentor to many students and fellow faculty members. He served on the Army Science Board, advisory committees for the National Science Foundation, as well as president of the Operations Research Society of America. He was also elected to the National Academy of Engineering.
But for all his academic and consulting work he was always home by 5:30 p.m. for dinner with his family.
He “flunked” his early retirement years, continuing at U-M as a professor emeritus and often working as a consultant through his 70s.
Steve and Tina loved to travel, enjoying trips over the years to Italy, Portugal, Turkey, Morocco, China, and many other places. For many years they enjoyed summers with family and friends at their vacation home on Chappaquiddick, where Steve was fond of clamming in the shallows of Katama Bay and sometimes pretending to fish from the shore.
While his later years were clouded by dementia and Alzheimer’s he retained through to the end his deep love and devotion for Tina and his appreciation of a good hamburger.
In memory of Steve, consider a donation to Central World Kitchen, the American Civil Liberties Union or Planned Parenthood.
For more on Stephen Pollock’s visionary leadership, rigorous scholarship and steadfast mentorship, visit the Industrial and Operations Engineering Department website.
— Submitted by Muehlig Funeral Chapel
Anastassios Perakis
Very sorry to read about Steve’s passing in the materials for our next College of Engineering faculty meeting. I knew and worked with Steve from the first day I arrived at U of M for my faculty interview, on June 1, 1982, where Steve was the ‘external faculty representative” on behalf of the College of Eng. When I started my career at UM in Fall 1982, I continued to cooperate with him, teaching his IOE460 Decision Analysis course twice, in 1983 and 1987, when he took a sabbatical and/or was chair of IOE, and in many other forms. Our cooperation continued for several decades. We shared an appreciation of New Yorker cartoons, among other things. I have the best memories of Steve as a colleague and friend, too many to cite all here. He had an excellent career and a great life and family.