BARRY SIMON

BARRY SIMON, 67, died in Boston on July 14, 2010, surrounded by his loving family. He had fought multiple myeloma for more than five years but in the end this incurable cancer won the battle.Barry lived fully, even during the sometimes difficult years of his illness. His family was the most important part of his life, and nothing gave him more pleasure than the time spent with his children and his grandchildren. He was especially delighted when these moments intersected with his other passions: tennis, literature, opera and lively political debate. His ongoing bets with his grandsons about grand slam tournaments and his long conversations with his sons about the issues of the day or the airline industry were very special moments.In his professional life, Barry played an important role in the restructuring of the airline industry following deregulation in the 1970s. Starting with Continental in 1982, he worked for three major airlines as General Counsel - Continental, Eastern, and Northwest - helping Continental and Northwest emerge successfully from bankruptcy to be among the few surviving major players in the industry. He also ran Continental's international division for many years, expanding the airline's service to as diverse locales as Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro and Tel Aviv.Prior to his work in the airline industry, Barry was very involved in the emergence of cable television when he served as general counsel of the largest cable operator of the day, Teleprompter Corporation. Barry worked as part of the team that turned Teleprompter around during a period when the cable industry went from a niche service for rural communities to a ubiquitous entertainment medium delivered across the country. Among his accomplishments at Teleprompter was the successful effort to change copyright laws to make them more conducive to the dissemination and distribution of content across different media platforms.Barry grew up in Paterson, New Jersey, spending his summers in the seashore community of Deal where he and his wife of 46 years, Hinda, met as children. He went to Yale Law School after his undergraduate years at Princeton, where he majored in literature, writing his thesis on the British poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. While his work and his family kept him very busy, he always made time for a good book, play, or opera. He was a major contributor to arts and culture in his adopted home of Houston, Texas, serving on the boards of the Houston Grand Opera, Inprint and Gulf Coast. For the last eleven years, he spent his summers, and part of the spring and fall, in Annisquam on Cape Ann in Massachusetts, where he belonged to the Annisquam Yacht Club and was an active member of the community.Barry is survived by his loving wife, Hinda, his three devoted sons, Alan, John, and Eric, and their families, including his daughters-in-law Laura and Christine and four adored grandchildren, Will, Leo, Maya, and Jaina, and his devoted brother Clifford. A memorial service will be held on Friday, July 23 at the Rothko Chapel, 3900 Yupon Street, at 1:00 PM. In lieu of flowers donations may be made to The Houston Grand Opera, 510 Preston Street, Houston 77002, or The Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (for multiple myeloma research), Kenneth C. Anderson, MD, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, 44 Binney Street, room M557, Boston, MA 02115.