John Ege

EGE John Ege, Longtime Westport Resident, died at 94. John Ege, long time resident of Westport, died on Friday, October 1. Mr. Ege suffered from a heart attack and was unable to overcome its effects. He was surrounded by his wife, Mary and his three sons, Stephen, Frederick and John. He lived a rich life during his 94 years. Against steep odds at the time, he was able to make an important career in the newly developed field of industry hygiene and safety, protecting workers from the effects of industrial production. He grew up in a one room house with five children and was eventually accepted by Harvard University. To pay his tuition, he took a year off from school to travel the country as an entertainer with the World of Mirth Circus. He graduated Harvard with a BS in Chemistry in 1939 and was invited by a professor to serve the Navy in a Harvard affiliated program to oversee construction of battleships and destroyers to support the war effort. After the war, he went back to Harvard to complete graduate studies, obtaining a masters degree in 1946. Following a stint in Baltimore, he was selected to oversee safety at the Argonne National Laboratory located outside Chicago, whose scientists included members of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb. At the request of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, the mission of Argonne was broadened to include the development of peaceful uses of atomic energy. In 1971, Mr. Ege joined the General Electric Corporation, eventually promoted to the company's corporate headquarters in Fairfield. While at GE, Mr. Ege's responsibilities, in addition to worker safety, were broadened to include general environmental protection across GE's entire, worldwide plant locations. Mr. Ege retired from GE in 1984. John Ege is the author of numerous technical publications on plant safety, holds a patent on detecting certain hazardous compounds in the atmosphere, and held numerous professional memberships, including the American Chemical Society, member of the Board of Directors of the American Industrial Hygiene Association, and the Health Physics Society. He was Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was elected to the Harvard chapter of Delta Omega, an honorary scholastic public health society.