Saluting The Legacy of Seymour "Zoom" Fleisher '51
When Seymour “Zoom” Fleisher passed away at the age of 88 on December 18, 2011, NJIT and its students, including its student-athletes, lost a great friend and benefactor.
A resident of Palm Beach Gardens, FL, and Fort Lee, NJ, at the time of his death, “Zoom” was born and raised in Newark, NJ, graduating from the city's Weequahic High School.
After service as a captain in the 20th Air Force, 315th Bomb Wing during World War II, he, like so many men of his generation, returned home to attend college, enrolling in Newark College of Engineering, where, in 1951, he earned a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the school now known as New Jersey Institute of Technology.
He also earned the nickname “Zoom” for his speed on the court as captain of the NCE basketball team in the late 1940s through to 1951.
For more than 60 years after his graduation, Zoom Fleisher stayed close to his alma mater and its athletics program, lending broad-based support over those six-plus decades.
In the realm of athletics, he was inducted into the NJIT Alumni Athletics Hall of Fame in 1992 and served on numerous advisory boards, serving through 2011. In 2006, he was named first recipient of the Herb M. Iris Award, which honors exemplary leadership and support in the advancement of athletics at NJIT.
Herb Iris, like Fleisher, was a Weequahic High graduate and although they were in high school at different times, Zoom and Herb would later be teammates on the post-World War II NCE basketball teams.
Zoom Fleisher and his wife of 52 years, Estelle, who predeceased him, passing in 1997, helped create and endow numerous scholarships at NJIT, including many to benefit student-athletes.
On February 17, 1999, NJIT's existing indoor athletics and recreation facility, enhanced with additional office and recreation space, was re-dedicated as the “Estelle and Zoom Fleisher Athletic Center”. A bronze plaque featuring the likenesses of the two Fleishers was placed in the gym lobby with the following quote from Zoom: “The NCE experience was pivotal to our accomplishments and success.”
Later, in preparation for NJIT's entry into NCAA Division I competition, he supported the extensive summer 2006 renovation of the gym portion of the building that included new bleachers, new lighting, a new sound system, and a new floor that was named “Fleisher Family Court”.
After earning his degree from NCE, Fleisher went on to become the founder and chairman of Pilot Technologies Corp., a manufacturing firm of precision components and assemblies that served the electronics, telecommunication, aerospace, aviation, medical and utilities industries throughout North America.
His far-reaching civic, charitable and community activities included service on many Boards of Directors. Fleisher was an active supporter in the development and restoration of the Ammunition Hill Memorial Site in Israel, which will depict the siege of Jerusalem in the Six-Day War and serve as a center for learning and a symbol of the soldiers crucial to the security of Israel. He also served on the Board of Directors for the American Friends of Tel Aviv University, United Way of Passaic Valley, Wayne Area Chamber of Commerce, Kenneth L. Jordan Heart Foundation, and the Foundation for the Handicapped.
He often mentioned this adage by Mark Twain as being paramount to the way he chose to live his life: "Always do right, this will gratify some people and astonish the rest."
