GERALD COHEN Obituary

COHEN--Gerald David. On Thursday, December 3, Gerald Cohen, son of the late Frances and Leo Cohen, passed away at age 85. The founder and CEO, Gerald later served as Chairman of the Board of Information Builders, Inc. (ibi), once the largest privately held software company in New York City. Gerald's family includes son Jeffrey (father of his grandsons Benjamin and Matthew); son Evan and son-in- law Bengho; son Daniel and daughter-in-law Rhonda (parents of his grandchildren Maxwell, Samantha, and Allison); son Adam (father of his granddaughter Molly); nieces Francine and Jeanine; and an army of friends and former colleagues. His brother Bernard passed on December 7 at the age of 90. Born and raised on the Upper West Side of New York City, Gerald earned a B.A. in Mechanical Engineering from CCNY and an MA in Engineering from Columbia University. After marrying Sybil Cohen, he began developing Ramis software, often cited as the world's first fourth-gener-ation language (4GL) at Mathematica in 1965. Sales of Ramis were brisk because it was the first 4GL product to be sold by a company other than IBM. Cohen conceived new ideas of selling software directly to large corporations and left Mathematica to found ibi with Peter Mittelman (also a Ramis developer) and Dr. Martin Slagowitz in 1975. Cohen devised FOCUS, a 4GL software product that allows computer users with little training to manipulate data using standard English. Originally used through timesharing (think Cloud services in the 1980s), the revenue stream enabled ibi to fund development of FOCUS for other systems beyond the mainframe. By the end of 1987, ibi was among the three largest privately-held software companies in the United States. A lifelong believer in learning, Cohen graduated in 1991 with a Master of Arts degree from St. John's College in New Mexico. He also received numerous patents for his technologies, including Active Reports. Another innovation conceived by Cohen was EDA (later iWay), a data access tool released the same year. iWay integrated any database and application files, and application programs, in multiple operating environments. FOCUS for Windows debuted in 1994. Later that year, he married Pamela Zimmerman (who predeceased him on June 27, 2020). The company introduced WebFOCUS in 1996, a powerful tool to display reports on the Internet. Gerald segued from CEO to Chairman of the Board of ibi in 2019. Earlier this year, after ibi agreed to be acquired by TIBCO Software Inc., a global leader in enterprise data, Gerald announced his retirement. Gerald also served as Chairman of the New York Software Industry Association. He taught at NYU and supported the NYU Langone Medical Center. He enjoyed bicycling, paddle boarding and tennis. He and Pamela loved film and were avid Eric Clapton concert-goers, along with seeing more Grateful Dead shows than three of his children. A private burial was held in New Jersey, as well as a virtual memorial. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the American Diabetes Association at:
http://main.diabetes.org/site/TR?px=16230610&fr_id=13121&pg=personal

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Published by New York Times on Dec. 10, 2020.

Memories and Condolences
for GERALD COHEN

10 Entries

Claudia Miranda Coppens

December 5, 2022

Time flies but good people like Gerry are always in our . Gerry is missed for sure.

Cary Lu

December 26, 2021

Always had a great time with Pam and Gerry, where ever you guys are please order the METOTM!

Mike Lurie

April 20, 2021

I cut my teeth in the MIS industry in the early 1980s using DFOCUS. I met Gerry a few times while attending user group meetings. A nicer man you would never meet! Always willing to spend time with his FOCUS programmers whomever and wherever they were. My condolences to his family.

Gretchen Pusch

January 4, 2021

The Dorian Wind Quintet extends its sincere condolences to family, friends and colleagues for the loss of Gerald. Though we never met in person, he was from all descriptions an extraordinary man.

I am the flutist of the Dorian Quintet which Pamela and Gerald had generously supported in recent years. I received a thank-you note from Gerald with a Westchester postmark of December 28, obviously written weeks ago, in response to a condolence letter I had sent him after Pamela died. There was no return address on this note
but I assume it was sent to me by a family member. I had offered to Gerald that the quintet might play at Pamela's memorial service. I now make the same offer on behalf of the quintet for Gerald's memorial service in post-Covid times IF the family wishes. (The quintet has been largely inactive since March of '20 but expects to resume performance activities once we've received the vaccine.)

Please let me know whom to contact. Thank you!

Roger Iddles

December 25, 2020

Gerry Cohen. What a great guy! I am of the era having joined LEO Computers in 1962 and after various positions in IBM I joined IB in UK in 1993. It was here that I met Gerry (and the wonderful Pam). Such an interesting man with his hand firmly on the pulse. I imagine that as a product developer in IB it must have been quite tough with such a qualified and informed executive officer.
The culture he engendered was years ahead of the times. Gerry was never short of time to help solve a customer issue or a product deficiency. The culture throughout was to understand and explain, not to dictate.
We all enjoyed each others successes.
I'm sure that if we had a software developers 'Hall of Fame', Gerry would be a very early entrant. Goodness knows how much value FOCUS mined and mines from our customers' data stores - $billions! And what diversity of industry benefited. Amazing!
Bon voyage Gerry. You will be sadly missed.

Terry Cosentino

December 15, 2020

Gerry’s kindness and humility was constantly shown in building a family environment with all his employees. His legacy will continue through all of the people he touched.