William E. Rosen

Mr. Rosen was a well-known presence in Summit, where he served on the Summit Common Council, the Summit Zoning Board of Adjustment, the Summit Board of Education, the Union County Joint Commission, and the boards of HomeTowne TV, the Colonial Crossroads chapter of the Red Cross, and the Boy Scouts, among many municipal and regional organizations and non-profits.

Professionally, Mr. Rosen served for many years as President of Sutton Laboratories, a Chatham -based specialty chemical company founded by his brother-in-law, Philip Berke. Prior to Sutton, he worked at CIBA in Summit.

Born to an immigrant family in 1927, Mr. Rosen finished high school and enrolled in City College of New York at the age of 15. After enlisting in the Army Air Corps at the tail end of World War II, he went on to get his master’s degree and Ph.D. in organic chemistry at Harvard University in 1952. There he worked with the world's top minds on some of the most cutting-edge chemical research of the day, but he never doubted that the most interesting and impressive person he met there was the woman who became his wife, Diana, who at the time was getting her master’s degree in the chemistry department at Harvard.

Bill and Diana were married in 1953 and moved to Summit in 1958, when they bought the house on Canoe Brook Parkway in which they lived for the rest of their lives. There they raised their five children, Deborah (Susan) of Basking Ridge, David (Sarah) of Short Hills, Barbara of Newton, MA, Richard (Judy) of Summit and Andrew (Marcelle) of Fort Lauderdale, FL. They had nine grandchildren: Sarah, Rebecca, Michael, Danielle, Benjamin, Joshua, Caroline, Jonathan and Jacob. Mr. Rosen also leaves his niece Laura (Frank) and nephew Matthew (Edith). His much-loved wife, Diana, died in 2011.

Bill and Diana Rosen received numerous awards and recognitions for their civic roles, including Co-Citizens of the Year from the United Way in 1987. The Summit Common Council held a moment of silence in memory of Mr. Rosen at their meeting last week.

Mr. Rosen was surrounded by his family when he died peacefully in his home. Said one of his children in a Facebook post: “I never saw my Dad do the wrong thing. If he got too much in change, he'd give it back. If a car wanted to pull into his lane, he didn't block them. If he saw a problem in the town where we grew up, he didn't complain about it; he'd solve it himself or pull together a group to do so. At work, he and my uncle agreed that providing good quality to their customers and a great environment for their employees was more important than making an extra buck. I never, ever saw him scheme to advantage himself unfairly on anything, except maybe by working harder or smarter. He treated every person he met with respect, a smile and a friendly quip, even in an era when it wasn't common to treat everyone equally.”

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that donations be sent to the Diana Burn Rosen Volunteer Award at Temple Sinai of Summit, 208 Summit Ave., Summit NJ 07901.