Economics Professor Emeritus Mary Holman Dies

(1933-2008)

A past colleague and Professor Emeritus passed from our ranks on July 4, 2008, just a week after her 75th birthday.

Dr. Mary A. Holman spent most of her adult life here at George Washington. After finishing high school at the Mount Vernon Seminary, she arrived at GW and never looked back. She earned an A.B., an M.A., and a Ph.D. between 1951 and 1963. She was a loyal and spirited member of the GW community; one friend recalled her being named Homecoming Queen while an undergraduate. For her doctoral dissertation research, she was awarded the Robert. C. Watson Award of the American Patent Law Association, a high honor for anyone, let alone a student.

Before finishing her Ph.D., Dr. Holman was already teaching at GW. Her expertise was in patent policy and the economic effects of the space program. She taught the Survey of Economics courses taken by most  business school graduate students and many graduate students from the Elliot School.  She also taught Managerial Economics and Natural Resource Economics and directed the Natural Resource Policy Center from 1970 to 1976.

Dr. Holman is remembered as an engaging and thought-provoking instructor. For more than 40 years, she trained thousands of students in the field of economics. For many, she was their dissertation adviser and mentor. Between 1976 and 1979, she served as Department Chair, and was highly respected by her colleagues.

 “She was a very delightful, and very productive colleague --- and the students loved her,” says Dr. Henry Solomon. “That’s a lot to say about a coworker. But she was.”

Additionally, Dr. Holman was a Professorial Lecturer at the Naval School of Health and Sciences, the National War College, and the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. The latter presented her with a Certificate of Appreciation of Significant Contribution to the Education Program of ICAP in 1966. She served as consultant to NASA”s Manned Space Flight Program, other government organizations including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Bureau of Standards, and the Institute for Defense Analysis,  as well as to a number of law firms and private foundations.

Her principal publications include Evaluation of the Patent Policies of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (1966),  The Political Economy of the Space Program (1974),  and  Price Theory and its Uses.  coauthor, (1977). She also published many journal articles on patent policy, the economics of the space program, and the environment.

Dr. Holman is survived by her husband, Dr., Theodore Suranyi-Unger,  nieces Laura, Linda, and Lisa -  and the thousands of lives she touched at GW. We are most fortunate to have known such an amazing woman as Dr. Mary Holman.