Moore & Associates remembers Jerry Rose, 50-year paper and recycling industry veteran

Jerry Rose, 84, of Stamford, CT, passed away peacefully on Saturday, June 22, 2019 surrounded by his loving family. A 50-year veteran of the paper and recycling industries, Jerry was a respected expert in the business and held several senior management positions before becoming a consultant. Jerry was a legend in the industry, with a wealth of knowledge and friends in every corner of the business. 

He could be intimidating and exacting but he was also a hard worker who was always willing to help out a colleague. Jerry was highly respected by his colleagues and accomplished a great deal. As Bill Moore of Moore & Associates says "Many challenging data and information needs come up in our consulting work and if you asked Jerry to handle something, you knew it was done. He never stopped short of the goal."

Jerry was born in Brooklyn, NY and spent 2 years in the army, stationed in Berlin, where on the side, he trained for the Olympics in water polo. Possibly sensing that water polo might be a short career, Jerry returned to New York State and completed his degree at the New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry at Syracuse University with a specialization in Pulp & Paper. 

Jerry got his first job at a nearby mill and quickly worked his way up from tour boss to mill manager. He felt that to get ahead in business, you had to be ready to move anywhere the work was, and that he did, moving his family through 5 locations. From the late 1960s through the 1980s, he held executive level positions at Simkins Industries, Potlatch Corporation, Continental Can and the Standard Group.

In the mid 1980s, Jerry started his own business which successfully produced and marketed private label tissue. By the 1990s he moved into consulting on operations, training, purchasing, and recycling for the paper industry. In the late 1990s he began working with Moore & Associates on a regular basis, consulting on recovered paper.

Outside of work, Jerry felt a great sense of duty to his immediate and extended family. Despite travelling extensively for work, he was devoted to his wife Barbara who died 8 years earlier, and he always had time for his 4 children and 2 grandchildren. His family enjoyed many long-distance driving vacations that eventually covered the entire east coast, from North to South, and which he documented extensively in photographs.

Although he continued to work into his 1980s, Jerry recently semi-retired and began to volunteer at The Ferguson Library in Stamford, CT. There he soon became an expert on pricing used books and a key member of the team. Like his work colleagues, his manager at the library said what a strong and amazing man Jerry was, and how much he would be missed and remembered.

"Jerry will be deeply missed by his colleagues at Moore & Associates – and by the whole paper and recycling industries," said Bill Moore. "Our sincerest sympathies go out to his family and friends." A funeral service was held at Temple Beth El in Stamford CT on Tuesday, June 26.