A fund in memory of longtime former MIT employee John E. "Jack" Newcomb to benefit MIT's Community Service Fund (CSF) has been set up by his widow, Donna Lee Umana Newcomb. Mr. Newcomb, a Swampscott resident, died on November 27 at the age of 59.
A private memorial service will be held February 11 for Mr. Newcomb, former associate director of the Center for Advanced Engineering Study (renamed the Center for Advanced Educational Services in 1995). He joined the Institute in 1962 as a research assistant in the Francis Bitter National Magnet Laboratory and held a variety of administrative positions for 24 years, including special assistant to President Howard Johnson in the late 1960s.
Mr. Newcomb also played a pivotal role in negotiating the first bargaining unit for MIT service workers and in establishing the Quarter Century Club. He left MIT in 1986 to head the John E. Newcomb Associates consulting firm. In 1995, he became chef and proprietor of La Prima Donna, a gourmet Italian food shop and catering service in Swampscott.
Mr. Newcomb was a charter trustee of the CSF, which provides grants for community service projects in which MIT students, faculty and staff are involved. Those interested in donating to the CSF fund bearing his name should send checks made out to the MIT Community Service Fund with the words "Jack Newcomb Memorial Fund" on the memo line to the Office of Memorial Gifts, MIT Rm E38-202, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139.
In addition to his widow, Mr. Newcomb is survived by his mother, Theresa Newcomb; four brothers, Richard of Billerica, Dennis of North Andover, Allan of Monroe, NY and Michael of Salem; and three sisters, Janet Childs of Methuen, Sister Jane Newcomb of the Holy Union of Lowell and Patricia Houston of Cambridge.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on January 24, 2001.
