Adolph Eduard Ehbrecht
Mar 4th, 2022
Adolph Eduard Ehbrecht - 88 of South Yarmouth, loving husband, father and grandfather passed peacefully Friday March 4th, 2022 at the age of 88. He is survived by Mary, his wife of 58 years; his children Elizabeth, William, and Thomas and grandchildren Gillian, Emma, Sloane and Rowan.
Born in the Bronx, New York, Adolph was very active in his community as a trustee of Fordham Preparatory School, a longtime board member of the German Society of New York, a member of the Rotary club, a parent of two Boy Scouts, and a 4-H club member.
An avid reader, engineer and intellectual, he was a graduate of Fordham Preparatory school class of 1951, Stevens Institute of technology class of 1956, Harvard Business School class of 1958 and a member of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. His business career of over 60 years focused on technological enterprises. For many years he ran Voland Corporation, a scientific and industrial instrument firm. The company innovated many of the modern world’s most advanced and ultra precise mass measurement systems. These included the SuperBalance used by the international bureau of weights and measures in Sevres France; our own National Bureau of Standards; and national standards laboratories throughout the world to intercompare the standard kilogram with national and working standards. He had many interesting experiences and numerous friendships as a result of his worldwide export and import of specialty instrumentation.
In a different business realm and in another era, Adolph worked for many years with a very close African-American business colleague and friend, along with the first Nigerian to graduate as an electrical telecom engineer, to establish the first all-African staffed electronics manufacturing business in Nigeria. He was thankful for this very interesting pioneering adventure and for the deep personal friendships gained.
Adolph also served as a savings bank trustee, and later as a small business consultant and adjunct professor of international business at Fordham University.
Throughout his life he was family centered. He and his wife, Mary, fostered a love of travel, music, reading, history, intellectual and spiritual exploration and current events among his children. They traveled together as a family to England, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Peru, Canada, and a cross country trip around the United States.
He enjoyed a pleasant and low-key retired life on Cape Cod, and numerous involvements in church, historical, artistic and social organizations. He remained focused on his family, taking a keen interest in their activities and careers as well as the family history, particularly its technology and global migration threads. Adolph remained forever dedicated, loyal, supportive and loving of all of his family and many friends.
The family asks for donations in lieu of flowers, and suggests the following three organizations; Fordham Preparatory School, https://www.fordhamprep.org/giving/donate-now, Rotary International, https://new.rotary.org/en/donate, and The Conservation Fund http://www.conservationfund.org/.