Frederick Hecht ’52

Frederick Hecht ’52 passed away in Scottsdale, Arizona, on June 20. Ted lived a most interesting and varied life. He was born on July 11, 1930, in Maryland. In his class 25-year reunion book he wrote his suggested obituary, “Frederick (Ted) Hecht emanated from Baltimore Friends School, spent his junior year of college in France, graduated from Dartmouth as a French major cum laude, went to Middlebury as a graduate student in French, served in the Army as an interpreter-translator in French, German, and Russian, went to medical school, graduating from Rochester with honors in 1960 as an M.D., trained first in pediatrics and then in medical geriatrics at the University of Washington.” That was his start. He was on the medical school faculty at several universities and founded and served as president and director of the Southwest Biomedical Research Institute in Arizona and director of the Genetics Center and Cancer Center, now part of Genzyme Inc. Ted published extensively, served on multiple medical journal editorial boards, and reviewed articles for distinguished biomedical journals. He taught at a number of institutions, including Harvard Medical School, and recently served on the medical faculty at the University of Nice, France. He is survived by his second wife, Barbara; children Frederick, Matthew, Maude, and Tobias and stepchildren Brian and Kerrie and their families; his first wife, Irene; and brother Kenneth ’56.