PAUL L. STEINECK

Paul L. Steineck died peacefully but somewhat unexpectedly and all too soon on June 2, 2010 while undergoing treatments for urinary transitional cell cancer, pulmonary lymphoma and their side effects, at St. John's Riverside Hospital, Yonkers, N.Y. He was 68. The surgical, medical, technical, emergency and health services staff at St. John's provided him with outstanding health care and treatment as well as reassuring personal concern over the past three years. Mr. Steineck was a life-long resident of Yonkers. He was born at Yonkers General Hospital to his parents, Betty (Rebecca) Sarif (Sarofsky) Steineck and Harold Steineck in 1942. He was raised in the Van Cortlandt Park and Valentine Lane area in southwest Yonkers, and educated in the Yonkers public school system. He attended college and graduate school at New York University (NYU) in New York City, went on to advanced graduate studies at the University of Southern California (USC), and received a Ph.D. from Louisiana State University (LSU) in geology and marine paleontology. He was hired directly from LSU and began a long career spanning over 30 years in scholarly research, teaching, professional and public service as a professor in the Environmental Sciences Program, Division of Natural Sciences, State University of New York at Purchase College (Westchester County), Purchase, NY. He was promoted from Assistant Professor to Full Professor during that time, and was awarded the distinguished position of Professor Emeritus after retirement. He taught such courses as Introduction to Environmental Science, Geology, Environmental Geology, Marine Paleobiology and Human Ecology & Environmental Impact. He also advised and mentored many students over the years who conducted research with him as part of their Undergraduates Senior Thesis research project, a unique two-semester course required for graduating from the School of Liberal Arts & Sciences at Purchase College. In 1988, he married Barbara L. Dexter, also a member of the science faculty at Purchase College. Their wedding ceremony was performed by Rabbi Abraham Klausner at Temple Emmanu-El on Rumsey Rd. in Yonkers, where Paul had attended services and schooling for his bar mitzvah. Friends, family and former students all attended the service and a wonderful reception there, and the couple traveled to Canada to celebrate their marriage later that summer. The couple lived comfortably together on DeHaven Drive in northwest Yonkers for over 20 years along with their beloved golden retrievers, first Lady Belle and then Jesse Mariah, until his untimely death from terminal cancer. In addition to his active teaching and research career, Mr. Steineck was also devoted to his life-long interests in bird identification and ecology. He was an active member in local chapters of the National Audubon Society, starting with the Yonkers chapter as a young man and continuing with the Hudson River Audubon Society of Westchester. His bird identification list included over 500 different species within the United States. He also took birding trips to the Galapagos Islands, the Carribbean, Canada, France and Japan. He is survived by his wife Barbara and her extended family who he considered his own. A remembrance get-together and tree-planting ceremony will be held in the fall at Lenoir Nature Preserve, North Broadway, Yonkers. A memorial ceremony will also be held in the fall at Purchase College-SUNY for professional friends and colleagues, at which time a scholarship fund in his name will be announced. In lieu of flowers, donations honoring Mr. Steineck's contributions to the local and regional birding communities can be sent to: Hudson River Audubon Society of Westchester (HRAS), P.O. Box 616, Yonkers, NY 10703, or visit their newsletter/website at http://www.hras.org for more information.