Frank T. Ostrander Jr., 101
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — Frank Taylor Ostrander Jr., 101, of Ide Road died Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, in Williamstown. An expert in economics, he worked in both the private and governmental sector for more than a half-century, spending his later years in Williamstown.
Born in Pittsburgh on Nov. 1, 1910, son of Frank Taylor and Florence Littlejohn Hawkins Ostrander, his family moved to White Plains, N.Y, in 1916 and to Scarsdale, N.Y., in 1926. He graduated from the Hackley School in Tarrytown, N.Y. He received his bachelor's degree from Williams College in 1932, graduating magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and with final honors in economics. In 1932-33, he studied economics at Oxford University on a British-sponsored Henry Fellowship, and continued graduate study at the University of Chicago (1933-34).
After teaching economics at Williams for a year, Mr. Ostrander went to work with the U.S. Treasury Department in the early New Deal, directing WPA projects in Baltimore and Chicago, and several smaller projects in the Midwest, then four years on international trade and monetary matters. From late 1940, he worked in the defense and war agencies, most importantly in 1940-41 as co-chairman of a group of economists working closely with the national director for price stabilization, but also in the Munitions Branch of the War Production Board and at the Office of the Alien Property Custodian.
He took a private-sector position for two years as economic consultant to the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., working on wartime tax and labor policies and on postwar economic potentials. In January 1945, he joined the Mission for Economic Warfare at the American Embassy in London, followed by postwar intelligence work in Frankfurt, Germany. This led to his assignment with the occupational government there and at Gen. Clay's headquarters in Berlin, where, for nearly three years, he was chief of price control and U.S. member of the Price Control Committee at the four-power Allied Control Council. In 1948, he joined the Marshall Plan regional office in Paris, where he served in the U.S. delegation to OEEC and later as director of the Economic Capabilities Division in the U.S. Mission to NATO.
Mr. Ostrander returned to America in 1953, settled in Chappaqua, N.Y., and went to work at the American Metal Co., which later became American Metal Climax, Inc. and finally AMAX Inc. He worked for the next 30 years there, with more than two decades as assistant to the chairman. In the 1950s and '60s, he handled political and economic aspects of his company's investments in copper mining in southern Africa; in later years, he was was mainly concerned with the company's interests in international policies on investment, trade, resources and environment.
While at AMAX, and continuing after he retired in 1983, he was an adjunct professor of international business at the Lubin Graduate School of Business at Pace University in New York. He remained active through the 1990s and 2000s, participating in many scholarly ventures such as the late Warren J. Samuels' multivolume "Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology."
Both his first wife, the former Liesel Schulze, and his wife, the former Ruth Valerie Koschuk, are deceased.
He leaves his daughter, Tryntje Ostrander; two sons, Frank Ostrander and Christopher Ostrander; nine grandchildren, Tasha, Tarik, Alaric, Zachary, Nikita, Katrina, Otis, Alexander, Lyra, and two great-grandchildren, Ivan and Isaac.
He was predeceased by his son, Pieter Ostrander.
FUNERAL NOTICE — A memorial service will be held for Mr. Ostrander at St. John's Episcopal Church in Williamstown on Saturday, Dec. 10, at noon. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the charity of your choice in care of Flynn & Dagnoli-Montagna Home for Funerals, West Chapels, 521 West Main St., North Adams, MA 01247.