Obituary: SRI Co-founder Gerald Glasser

Octonogerian Gerald (Gerry) Glasser, the co-founder and CEO of media measurement firm Statistical Research Inc. (SRI), died on Sunday after a brief illness.

A life-long Westfield resident, Glasser earned a BS in Economics and Statistics, an MBA in Statistics, and a PhD in Mathematics and Statistics from New York University, where he served as a faculty member for nearly four decades.

In 1969, Glasser founded SRI with Gale Metzger, who had previously been Director of Research in Nielsen's media division. Three years later, the company took over operation of a collaborative industry research effort called Radio's All Dimension Audience Research (RADAR). The system, which measures audiences to radio commercials, was sold to radio ratings giant Arbitron in 2001 for $25m. SRI also developed the S*M*A*R*T system, which uses TV ratings technology, in collaboration with dozens of major TV networks, advertisers and media agencies.

Prior to the sale of SRI's custom business to Knowledge Networks in 2001, the company had more than 200 employees, and clients included all major TV and radio networks, many local stations, ad agencies and national advertisers.

During his career, Glasser was a member of a number of professional associations including The American Statistical Association, The International Statistical Institute, The Institute of Mathematical Statistics, The Operations Research Society of America and the American Society for Quality Control. He also co-authored a text book called Statistics for Business Decisions, and wrote dozens of research and discussion papers which were published in scientific journals.

In 1990, Metzger and Glasser were joint recipients of media research's Hugh Malcolm Beville, Jr, Award of the National Association of Broadcasters and the Broadcast Education Association, having been cited for 'integrating audience research into the broadcast managerial process' and for 'superior leadership in the development of the audience measurement field'.

Alongside his commercial interests, Glasser was a full-time member of the New York University faculty for 39 years, and latterly held the rank of Professor Emeritus of Business Statistics. During this time, he received several teaching awards including the Lindback Foundation award for distinguished teaching, and the Great Teacher award from NYU.

After retiring from his research career, Glasser served as a trustee with the Westfield Foundation, was a member of the Board of Governors of Union County College, and a trustee on the advisory board at the Overlook Medical Center. He was also President of family charity The Thomas Glasser Foundation, named after his son Tom who died in the World Trade Center on 9/11. As part of his philanthropic endeavours, Glasser provided initial and ongoing funding of a center called Imagine at Overlook Medical, to help local families deal with grief and loss.

Temple Emanu-El Rabbi Doug Sagal described Glasser as 'one of the most generous and giving persons it has been my privilege to know', adding: 'His was the kind of giving and loving soul that only appears in a select few - and those of us who were privileged to know him will always recall his memory as a blessing.'

Glasser is survived by his wife Marlene, two daughters and eight grandchildren. His funeral was held earlier today at Temple Emanu-El, and in lieu of flowers, donations can be made in Glasser's name to Imagine at P.O. Box 711, Westfield, NJ 07090.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.