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Joseph Blotner
Joseph Leo Blotner, a former U-M professor whose biography of William Faulkner set a new standard for a literary biography, Born in 1923 in Scotch Plains, N.J., he halted his undergraduate career at nearby Drew University in order to serve in the Air Force. He was a bombardier aboard a B-17 Flying Fortress, and on his sixth bombing mission over Frankfurt, Germany, his plane was shot down. Blotner was held in a German prisoner-of-war camp for six-and-a-half months until Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army liberated the camp on April 29, 1945.
Following his discharge, he returned to Drew, then achieved a master’s at Northwestern University and a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania. Blotner taught at the University of Idaho, the University of Virginia, the University of North Carolina and U-M.
Blotner’s own last days were characteristically gentle. After the illness and death of his first wife Yvonne in 1990, Blotner enjoyed a sustaining marriage with Marnie Allen. When she died in 2004.
Theodore “Ted” Cohn
Theodore J. “Ted” Cohn died Jan. 11, 2013 at her home.
A 20-year member of the U-M Office of University Development, she began working as a joint secretary in the Corporate Foundation Relations and Development Reports & Information Offices in 1994. She quickly demonstrated her skills for handling complicated tasks, hard work and a supreme level of professionalism that resulted in steady promotions and her final position as executive director of development services.
Spickard was known throughout the university as the go-to person for questions related to processing of donors’ gifts. She could be relied upon to get to the bottom of problems or errors and to provide professional, prompt responses to donors’ questions, colleagues say.
She was preceded in death by her father, John Kwasny, and her sister, Jacqulyn Gross.
Shaun Jackson
Shaun Jackson, a professor of art and design who has received international acclaim for his work, passed away.”
Nadarajan said that for more than two decades, Jackson had been a “dedicated and beloved member of our community, mentoring generations of designers and sharing his optimism and love of life with all of us.
“He was the model of the interdisciplinary design educator, teaching across units and holding faculty appointments in art and design, architecture, and business. The entire university has lost a true friend and citizen.”
Monica Ponce de Leon, dean of the Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning, said Jackson created an extraordinary legacy and his work will provide inspiration for years to come.
“His passion as an educator and his unwavering commitment to the power of design will remain with us. He was a beautiful person whose mission was to make the world a more beautiful place,” she said. “We are indebted to his generosity of spirit.”
In addition to his appointments at U-M, Jackson was an inventor, designer and entrepreneur. He founded his first company, Eclipse Inc., while still an undergraduate student at U-M, where he studied architecture.
As president and design director at Eclipse, he guided the company’s growth from a small venture to a multimillion-dollar corporation with a global distribution network. Because of Jackson’s commitment to design-driven excellence, Eclipse was selected as a case study for a National Endowment for the Arts research project titled “The Competitive Edge: The Role of Design in American Business.”
Jackson’s current firm, Shaun Jackson Design Inc., serves clients including Apple, Dell, Toshiba, General Electric Medical Systems, Herman Miller, Nike, L.L. Bean, Eddie Bauer, Harley Davidson and Patagonia.
A respected member of North America’s industrial design community, Jackson holds more than 50 patents and has received national and international honors.
Jackson is survived by his wife, Catherine Banish-Jackson, sons Taylor and Ryan, and stepdaughters Sydney and Rachel Tuchman. Memorial arrangements are pending.
Jason Daida
Jason Daida, an associate research scientist and lecturer in the Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences and the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering, died Jan. 9, 2013 after battling with cancer. He was 53.
“Jason was a beloved teacher of many of our first-year students and made a real difference in their lives,” said James P. Holloway, associate dean for undergraduate education in the College of Engineering.
In addition to his work on the Ann Arbor campus, Daida was a frequent visiting faculty member at the UM-Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute in Shanghai.
Holloway said Daida was well known as an “innovative, friendly and compelling teacher” who taught introductory classes for first-year engineering students. In recognition of his work, Daida earned the college’s Teaching Excellence Award.
In a message to colleagues in the departments of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences and Industrial and Operations Engineering, department chairs James Slavin and Mark Daskin said Daida would be missed by his colleagues and also by the many students who took his introductory classes.
“We are especially grieved to think of the students who will now never be able to learn from this extraordinary teacher and mentor,” they wrote.
Daida’s research was in the theory and application of computational intelligence supporting open-ended problem solving, discovery and innovation. His work had applications across disciplines, including earth and space sciences and genetic programming. He was a founding editorial board member of the Journal in Genetic Programming and Evolvable Machines.
Daida is survived by his wife, Sandy Daida, and three children, Kaily, Matt and Jeannie.
