July 30, 2015

Stanley Rabin

Stanley Rabin was born in 1938 in the Bronx, New York, to a family of immigrants. His father came to America at age nine and worked in the wholesale grocery business before owning a liquor store, and his mother later worked as a saleswoman at Lord and Taylor. He grew up in an ethnically divided neighborhood that was entirely Jewish, playing stickball and basketball in the streets and working as a teenager selling concessions at Yankee Stadium and the Polo Grounds. He attended the Bronx High School of Science, a competitive public school, commuting by subway, and later graduated from Columbia University as a metallurgical engineer.

After college, Rabin worked in the nuclear program at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where he held a top security clearance, and served six months of active duty and six years in the reserves, doing basic training at Fort Knox and engineering training at Fort Leonard Wood. He then moved to GE in San Jose, California, where he earned an MBA at night from the University of Santa Clara. Through a friend he met Barbara Benjamin, who had grown up in Borger, Texas, and attended the University of Texas and the University of California, Berkeley. They married in February 1965 and had two children born in California.

In 1970 Rabin joined Commercial Metals Company in Dallas, drawn in part by Barbara's family ties in Texas. He spent more than 38 years with the company, serving as CEO for 28 years, and traveled extensively for business, including to Germany. He and Barbara became involved in the Dallas community early on. He served as president of Jewish Family Service, the Federation, and Temple Emanu-El, and on the boards of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (where he was treasurer), the American Jewish Committee, and Hebrew Union College. After retiring he devoted himself to nonprofit work, including United Way, the symphony, and chairing the Presbyterian Hospital board. Married 47 years with two children and five grandchildren, he counts marriage, children, and grandchildren among his happiest experiences.

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