Abraham D. Gosman

Abraham D. Gosman, of Weston, MA and West Palm Beach, FL died on October 21st, 2013 at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Abraham Gosman’s career has been that of a true entrepreneur. Even before he graduated from the University of New Hampshire, he began his first venture by developing an inexpensive way to attach alligator and lizard skin to shoes, thus, earning him the title of “the largest reptile laminator in the US.” He moved on to the heath care real estate industry in the 1960’s by purchasing large, rundown mansions and restoring them into nursing homes. By the 1980’s Mr. Gosman took his company, Mediplex, public and in 1985 established a spin-off company, Meditrust, of which he assumed the positions of Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer. In 1986 he sold Mediplex to Avon Products, while Meditrust continued to grow under his direction. Mediplex struggled under the Avon’s management and in 1990 Mr. Gosman repurchased the company for a fraction of what he sold it for. Once again, he turned Mediplex into a profitable company and in 1994 sold Mediplex again to Sun Healthcare.

In the 1990's Meditrust became the largest health care real estate investment trust in the nation, investing in health care related facilities, including nursing homes, retirement and assisted living facilities, rehabilitation facilities, medical office buildings, acute care hospitals, and psychiatric, alcohol and substance abuse facilities.

Abe Gosman's business success fueled his generosity to numerous charities. He became a philanthropist joining boards and building committees of several institutions and cultural organizations including Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts to whom he gave the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center, one of the largest facilities of its kind in New England. He gave major gifts to the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, to the United Way, Home Safe, the Good Samaritan Medical Center, to Mass General Hospital, Boston University, to the Norton Museum of Art, to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center of which he was a member of the Board of Overseers. He was a Life Trustee for the Kravis Center in Palm Beach to which he gave $1 million to build the Gosman Amphitheater, and was one of the first recipients of the Ellis Island Congressional Medal of Honor.

The husband of the late Betty (Joslin) Gosman, he was the devoted father of Michael & his wife Elizabeth Gosman, Andrew & his wife Jessica Gosman and David & his late wife Donna Gosman and the cherished grandfather of Emily, Samantha, Allison, Sydney, Alexander, Sabrina and Alyssa. Services will be at the Stanetsky Memorial Chapel, 1668 Beacon St, BROOKLINE, MA on Wednesday, October 23rd at 10 AM followed by interment at the Shara Tfilo cemetery at Baker St in West Roxbury, MA. Memorial observance will be at the home of Michael & Elizabeth Gosman on Wednesday following interment until 5 & 7-9 PM and Thursday 4-8 PM. Expressions of sympathy in his memory may be donated to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at www.dana-farber.org.

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