William Franklin Marovitz

William (Bill) Franklin Marovitz was born December 10, 1941, in Salt Lake City, UT, the son of Max and Gertrude (Ramo) Marovitz.  He grew up in Oakland, CA, where he learned a great deal from his father, a menswear store owner, and from his mother, a librarian.

Bill passed away suddenly on October 30th.  He leaves his loving wife Margaret of nearly 30 years; his son Daniel Marovitz, his wife Joy, and their children, Eliza and Isaac; his son Brendan Cullinane and his partner Briana Quinn; and Caroline Cullinane, her husband Christian Kassab, and their son Calvin.  He also leaves his sister Barbara Peister and her husband Jon, and several nieces and nephews, brothers-in-law and sisters-in law.  Bill and Daniel struggled together with Ronnie, Bill’s first wife and Daniel’s mother, throughout her two-year battle and death from leukemia at the age of 41.

Bill completed a rabbinical program at what has become the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, CA, but was never ordained.  Instead he entered UC Berkeley and earned his PhD in Anatomy and Physiology at the age of 24.  Bill was appointed Professor of Anatomy first at Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, MO, then at the Technion in Haifa, Israel, and also at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine in NYC where he worked for 12 years.  Bill was a much-admired professor and widely recognized for his research in otolaryngology and his pioneering work in electron microscopy.  His work for the Israeli government was always met with, “… but I can’t talk about that.”

Keenly interested in technology and medical information, Bill and a Harvard-trained MD he met at a local Radio Shack developed the first fully searchable full-text online, medical database, which launched his career into electronic publishing.  This was the first service of its kind in the world and pre-dated the public internet by more than ten years.  He was the President and CEO of Bibliographic Retrieval Systems (BRS).  Later he was the CEO of Elscint, the first Israeli-based New York Stock Exchange-listed company, which manufactured advanced medical imaging equipment.

With an entrepreneurial spirit he later co-founded Reliance Medical Information and Medical Data Management with his wife, Margaret.  Bill was subsequently tapped to be President and CEO of Churchill Livingstone, the world’s oldest medical publishing company, where he guided production of the 38th edition of Gray’s Anatomy, while commuting between Scotland and the U.S.  For the next several years he enjoyed developing independent companies that utilized Internet and related technology for Omnicom Group, and was President of Cerebrio, Kinect, and Guidenz, among others.

Bill was fluent in several languages and enjoyed extensive, often daily, study in Aramaic, Cannanite, Syriac, and Biblical Hebrew, Torah and Talmud.  Not at all a religious man, he nonetheless felt the lessons of Judaism were essential.  His passions for learning and teaching and for technology were central to his life.  He was always ahead of the curve and a true technophile.  Bill predicted the course of development leading to the original iPad, and started writing code for an app 6 months before creation of the device was publicly announced.  To satisfy his insatiable quest for knowledge, he would research any question that he did not have an answer to, a rare occurrence, and send you a report.  His family will fondly recall Bill’s pleasure in cooking a perfect brisket for a weekend family dinner, his enjoyment of jazz, especially Dave Brubeck, his achievements in photography (he maintained a professional studio in Manhattan while at Mt. Sinai and worked for Vogue), his incredible exaggerations, his admiration of Jacques Pepin, his once love for roller skating in Central Park, his “unique” sense of humor, his devotion to all things sci-fi, and his affection for large canines.  Bill often pronounced that he had a good life and asked that his life be celebrated with a party when he passed.

There will be a graveside service on Friday, November 3, 2017 at 10:30 AM at New North Cemetery, Washington Ave, Woodbury, CT., with a party to follow at Julio’s Restaurant, 220 Main St S., Southbury, CT at approximately 11:30.  

In accordance with Jewish tradition we ask that you not send flowers.  If you wish, please make a donation to the American Heart Association, or the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society or your local food bank. Munson Lovetere Funeral Home has been entrusted with the arrangements. 

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