Obituary of Knut Eric Knutsen

Eric Knutsen, longtime resident of Riverside, beloved husband, father and grandfather, died on October 1 at The Nathaniel Witherell nursing center. He was 75. The cause was complications from Alzheimer's. Eric was born in Brooklyn to Norwegian immigrant parents. His lifelong love of music was instilled early by his mother, Alice, a piano teacher; his father, Knut, bestowed an affinity for singing, storytelling and mischievous wordplay. Eric and his younger brother John grew up in Bay Ridge but also spent the late '40s in Copenhagen, and then Pittsburgh, when Knut's job at Gulf Oil relocated the family temporarily. After graduating from Poly Prep Country Day School in 1956, Eric majored in mathematics at Yale University, where a knack for probabilistic thinking gave rise to a tuition-funding poker career, in pickup games with classmates. "I quickly learned," he later quipped, "that some guys are way more interested in seeing another card than in holding on to another dollar." In 1959, he landed an internship at IBM in Kingston, NY—a short commute from his parents' summer retreat in Woodstock—and began writing software. A year later, he was hired to work on IBM's Stretch project, a supercomputer contracted by the Los Alamos Scientific Lab. Eric later said that the social connections he made among the engineers and computer architects who worked on Stretch represented the luckiest career break of his life. In 1960, soon after graduation, Eric married the love of his life, Gail Antony, whom he met and courted as a teenager. ("I knew that a life with him would never be dull," says Gail. "Not for one minute.") The newlyweds worked at IBM in Poughkeepsie for two years and then moved to Cambridge, MA, where Gail continued to work for IBM while Eric earned an MBA from Harvard. The couple later settled in Yorktown Heights, NY, where two sons, Rick and Chris, were born. Seized by an entrepreneurial itch, Eric left IBM in 1967 to co-found Graphic Sciences, a tech startup built with fellow veterans of Stretch that produced facsimile devices. The success of the company allowed the Knutsens to relocate in '71 to a quiet cul-de-sac in Riverside, where—having resolved to give their sons a less itinerant childhood than Eric and John's—they have remained ever since. Eric continued to work in computers and information technology, and, after a period of self-employment, he became a consultant at Gartner Group in the mid-'80s, where he worked for more than a decade. When he retired, at 58, Eric joyfully threw himself into volunteer projects and relished his newfound time for avocations. A devoted golfer since his youth (he was captain of Poly Prep's 1956 championship team and once shot a 68 at the Woodstock Golf Club), Eric assumed the role of historian and archivist at Innis Arden Golf Club, whose newsletter anointed him the clubhouse "Herodotus." For the club's 100-year anniversary in 1999, Eric wrote a lavishly illustrated book and spearheaded the centennial celebrations. He later penned a similar history of the Woodstock Golf Club. For the Greenwich Historical Society, Eric spent countless hours promoting a book published by the organization about the history of Greenwich, helping to raise funds and earning him their Volunteer of the Year award. He also served on the board of At Home in Greenwich, a nonprofit providing services to seniors, was active in the Greenwich Retired Men's Association and sang regularly with its choral group, the Melody Men. Retirement also allowed Eric more time to enjoy Woodstock and the scenic environs of Ohayo Mountain, where his parents had bought a cottage amidst a gregarious enclave of fellow Norwegians in the '50s, and where as a Brooklyn kid he'd spent summers in glorious barefoot freedom. In 2000, Eric built a new home on that same plot of land, a loving legacy for his sons and grandchildren. Even in the final months of his life, after he became a resident of Nathaniel Witherell, Eric's cheerful spirit never dimmed, nor did his love of singing. In his brief time at the home, he became known as a star of the karaoke mic, and took pure delight in seeing (and singing with) his family, who will forever miss the light he brought to their lives. In addition to his wife and sons, Eric is survived by four granddaughters—Olivia, Charlotte, Isadora and Sabine—all of whom, he would note proudly, live in Brooklyn, and two of whom currently attend his beloved alma mater, Poly Prep. The family will hold a memorial ceremony at a later date. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Poly Prep Country Day School. Please send donations to: Poly Prep - Performing Arts Center 9216 Seventh Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11228 Attention: Lisa Della Pietra, Alumni Director Online donations (in memory of K.E. Knutsen, '56) may be made at: http://www.polyprep.org/give Anyone wishing to offer condolences, or to contribute memories of Eric, may do so here: http://memorialwebsites.legacy.com/ericknutsen Read Knut Knutsen's Obituary and Guestbook.