Joel Kazin Ph’67 passed away October 13, 2021. He worked as an auditor or consultant for over 40 years. He had a MBA in Finance from New York University and a BS in Physics from The Cooper Union.
Joel Kazin had extensive experience in auditing, designing, deploying, managing and supporting computer environments. His final role at Pitney Bowes was as Sr. IT Audit Manager which he left in 2015. He then took a position at Bank of America as Vice President for Public Key Infrastructure Engineering.
He was a CPA (Certified Public Accountant), CISA (Certified Information Security Auditor),
CISM (Certified Information Security Manager), and CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional).
He served as Treasurer of the New York Metro Chapter of Information Systems Security Association (ISSA).
Joel Kazin was the older brother of Gary Kazin ChE’69 who followed Joel to The Cooper Union. The following tribute is written by Gary Kazin.
We moved to a new subdivision in January 1955, chosen for its short walk to the LIRR station. Mom never drove, so we walked or biked everywhere, later graduating to public transit for longer trips. Mom took us to New York City on the LIRR about once a month, which was a big deal for Joel, me and our sister, who was less than a year old when we moved. Mom used a big carriage, so there was room for a lot of stuff we needed to take with us. We went to the Central Park Zoo, museums and to Radio City Music Hall for the Christmas show, when it wasn’t quite the stand-alone extravaganza it is now – the first show on Saturday morning cost less than $1 and included a movie.
During the summers in the late 1950s, we’d all take the LIRR to Long Beach and walk to the pool. It was a long walk for us, but worth the trip once we reached the pool, and we were quite tired when we got home.
Another destination was Green Acres Mall. We took the LIRR to Valley Stream and walked the rest of the way. Some stores hadn’t been built, but there was plenty to do there. We got our eyeglasses at Cohen’s in the mall, having previously used their original store in the lower East Side, on Delancey Street.
I followed Joel through Boy Scouts and we went to summer camp together one year, but were in different groups, so didn’t see much of each other.
Joel was nearly three years older, but the Oceanside School Board decided to run an experiment during the summer of 1958. I went to summer school to take fifth grade English, social studies, science and math. I needed a ride to get to the old School 1 (razed decades ago) and got a ride with two girls, Ginny Urbanik and Catharine (Birdie) Stone (the School Board president’s daughter)! I don’t know if anyone kept tabs on us to see how we were doing afterward.
After that, Joel was two years ahead of me in school. I had his sixth grade teacher, but otherwise we had the same teachers only for science classes at OHS. We were each focused on our classes but found time to do some things together. During the summer of 1962, we went to see the Mets at the Polo Grounds (of course, they lost). It was my first foray to “the City” without a parent.
Joel’s guidance counselor didn’t encourage him to apply to the science and engineering colleges he’d selected. We have a cousin who graduated from The Cooper Union in 1961 and Joel wanted to go there too. Mom did encourage Joel, as she didn’t trust the counselor. Of course, Joel was accepted (and so was I, two years later) and Mom never let the counselor hear the end of it! I had a different guidance counselor who was much better.
Of course, our family went to the New York World’s Fair, in both 1964 and 1965. We enjoyed the exhibits and went several times.
At Cooper Union, we had different majors but some of the same professors, who seemed not to compare us: they’d had siblings before, including a pair of identical twins! We joined the same fraternity and played bridge together during lunch. A fraternity brother got him a blind date with Iris, who later became his wife. Joel got into the Cooper Union hiking club and later introduced me to the Turkey Roast, which continues today under the auspices of the Sierra Club.
After college graduation, our careers diverged. We got married seven months apart. Joel would have celebrated his 50th wedding anniversary in January 2022, with a trip to Israel planned to celebrate it later on (once the pandemic was over). Joel was a devoted father to his children, Eli and Marjorie, and both have stories about things he did for them.
We both became active Cooper Union alumni, participating in the annual Phonathon and serving on the Alumni Council for several years.
We had many outdoor activities. Joel was active in Boy Scouts after moving to Pleasantville and was still an Assistant Scoutmaster long after Eli had “aged out” of the local troop. On day trips starting in August 2010, he hiked the Appalachian Trail from Cheshire, Massachusetts, near the Vermont state line, reaching west most of the way to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in October 2020. I began hiking with him about four years ago on the Pennsylvania sections. His goal was to hike the entire trail, so he carefully entered each stretch he completed, into a log book.