Following is an email received on July 19, 2015 from a former Hunter College student, whose stories add to the legend that was Glen.  Thank you, Ira, for these "blessed" memories.

From: Ira J. Furman
Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2015 3:54 PM
To: tnygreen
Subject: Of Blessed Memory

I assume I am addressing the son of Glen T. Nygreen, the dean of students when I earned my undergraduate degree from Hunter College in The Bronx. I recently had occasion to mention his generosity and professionalism some fifty years ago and the friendship that developed when he came to Hunter from Kent State University. Because I believe we live on in the thoughts of those who remember us, and because I read your eulogy, I was inspired to share a couple of memories.

At Hunter I was devoted entirely to my role as a reporter and editor with the bi-campus school newspaper, The Arrow, and had multiple occasions to interview the Dean. He came to know that I found grades only important enough to assure I met the threshold for graduation and that by my senior year I had already satisfied my career goal when I landed full-time employment at night with a major New Jersey daily newspaper.

After setting the school record by missing all 45 classes of a 3-credit course, yet passing with a respectable-enough “C” based on the final exam, your father sent out word he wanted me to come to his office. As there were no dormitories, nor cell phones or e-mail back then, it was a matter of word-of-mouth that “the Dean is looking for Furman.” When I showed up, he had a proposition for me.

It went along these lines: “Listen, Ira, I know you don’t attend classes anyway, so I don’t feel guilty asking you to help me out with a project. The Peace Corps is sending a representative and we want to be good hosts, so I am asking you to be my emissary and to use my name to make whatever arrangements are necessary to accommodate the fellow.” I undertook the task with gusto and, to this day, that representative from the Peace Corps and his wife are cherished friends.

Then there was the time that my buddy Ed and I cooked up the idea of a road trip during the summer of ’64. Your father also knew Ed, a fellow educational miscreant devoted to the school newspaper before he, too, launched a professional career in the news business. When I mentioned to your father the possibility of touring Ohio – just for the hell of it – he jumped on the opportunity to make it a reality. Because of his efforts I remember that Ed and I were guests of not only Kent State, but of the University of Cincinnati. Free dorm rooms sure beat paying for a motel!

An earlier interaction with your father came on a Friday in November ’63. During the interval between President Kennedy being shot and the announcement of his death, your father drove his convertible on to the campus, put the top down and turned up the radio. As your father sat there somberly, students crowded against the car. He did not know I was one of them until the photograph I took of the scene ran on the front page of Monday’s school newspaper under the headline I had taken from the Inaugural Address: “With history the final judge of our deeds; let us go forth to lead the land we love.”

A last story of the coincidences of life involving your father. About five years later I was working as the editor of what was called an “action-line” column. It was a front-page feature filled with the paper’s response to seemingly impossible reader requests for assistance. (Like arranging for a free sterile rental car for parents to transport a boy to surgery at Johns Hopkins; getting a free replacement of a glass eye; locating a photograph of the ship on which ancestors came from Europe.)

The managing editor approached me with a personal problem. He was on the board of a local university that was scheduled to interview a dean from an out-of-town college. A sudden death meant the interview had to be cancelled; the man was going to fly to New Jersey that night; and no one but the decedent had a number with which to reach the job candidate before he left work.

The real problem was, my boss reminded me, that the telephone company information operators were on strike. No way to get the school’s number! My first thought was to try to use a wire service to contact a newspaper in the area and have them look up the school’s main number and I would try to take it from there. But then I got the specifics and as soon as the managing editor turned his back, I dialed your father’s office from memory.

His secretary (I think her name was Mrs. Salvin) was so fond of me and full of cheerful concern I had a special nickname for her we shared. So, I said, “Hello, Mother, it’s Ira. I have an urgent need to reach Dean “X” at Kent State and need a phone number for him. Within mere minutes from the editor’s visit to my desk I strode into his office and handed him a piece of paper: “This is the private number for Dean “X.”

I never explained how your father’s hand had enabled me to perform “magic” and become a celebrity in the newsroom.

In 1969, four years after graduation, your father was a guest at my wedding. My wife and I still speak of his advice on that occasion. “Never both get mad at the same time. Always take turns getting mad and no argument will last.”

As we say in my faith, the Dean is "Of Blessed Memory."

Respectfully yours,
Ira J. Furman

Ira J. Furman is an attorney and counselor at law in New York admitted to practice before two federal district courts, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and before the Supreme Court of the United States.

Just prior to the private practice of law, Furman was Deputy Director for Public Affairs at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). He served as spokesman for the Safety Board in connection with major aviation, rail, highway, marine, and pipeline accident investigations. In addition to his work in Washington, D.C., he responded as part of the agency's "Go-Team" to the site of numerous aviation disasters and also worked at passenger and cargo rail accident sites all across the country.

In September 1985 his efforts at inspiring new federal regulations prohibiting alcohol and drug abuse in railroad operations were recognized with a special government award.

After his return to New York to practice law, Furman engaged in a pro bono (without compensation) effort to bring to light evidence of consistent fraud in safety procedures and record keeping by Eastern Air Lines. His presentation of this evidence to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Justice Department preceded the federal indictments of airline officials and the closing of Eastern.

Additional pro bono efforts in furtherance of public safety include Furman testifying as an expert before the United States Senate Aviation Subcommittee about shortcomings in Federal Aviation Administration management of aviation safety. He also provided free consultation on proposed air safety legislation to the then-ranking member of the Committee.

Since leaving the NTSB, Furman has used his unique background in the investigation of aircraft accidents to assist in news coverage of aviation disasters and to further the interests of those who are the victims, or relatives of victims, of air crashes and other accident-related events. He has been consulted in connection with many national and internationally known events, including the Lockerbie Pan Am 103 bombing, the TWA 800 flight that exploded over Long Island, and disappearance of the Malaysia MH 370 airlines flight. On the morning of September 11, 2001 he went live on CNN as part of its reporting on an apparent aircraft accident at the World Trade Center. His on-air analysis and commentary that the unfolding event was not “an accident” was likely the first such suggestion of terrorism to be broadcast and published worldwide.

After being an associate and later a partner in a New York law firm, Furman created a law practice that principally serves corporate clients and small businesses, especially those in which his first-hand knowledge of government bureaucracy and regulatory issues can be used to the client's advantage. He has represented clients in federal court and internationally in connection with art fraud, forgeries, disputed provenance and title, and has an established relationship with legal counsel in Geneva, Switzerland.

Furman began his federal government service as a Deputy Director at the Federal Trade Commission during the Carter Administration where he earned several achievement awards, including a special award in 1979 by the FTC Chairman for "Contribution to Effective Operations" of the agency.

In his practice of law, Furman has opposed the Federal Trade Commission in federal district court, and advised other clients on FTC regulatory matters, and successfully represented several corporate and individual defendants in adjudicative proceedings before the Commission.

Other federal regulatory work has included representation of clients before the U.S. Department of Labor, the National Transportation Safety Board, the Department of Transportation, and even the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC). To work effectively on a case in South Dakota, he learned casino law and obtained a personal gaming management license from the state. At another client’s request, Furman cleared all regulatory hurdles for the creation of a new scheduled domestic airline and obtained full FAA certification.

Furman is also a licensed private investigator, operating for twenty-five years as Esquire Private Investigations, Inc., a New York State licensed and bonded investigation firm.

Before his government service, Furman was for more than eight years Director of Communications for Consumers Union, nonprofit publisher of Consumer Reports magazine. While there he created and produced a daily consumer news program that he syndicated nationwide. Furman also worked on television programming for Consumers Union and produced a documentary film – narrated by Betty Furness -- aired for the Senate Commerce Committee to accompany his testimony advocating improved federal standards for child-safety seats.

Earlier, his first profession spanned several years of newspaper reporting and editing, including winning a New Jersey Press Association award in 1969. Thereafter he moved to Bergen County, New Jersey, where he received official commendation for his role as a police officer in the shooting of two men attempting the armed robbery of a tavern.

Furman was working full-time when he entered an evening law school program. He received his Juris Doctorate (J.D.) from the Columbus School of Law of the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. at age 42. As a law student he served as a judge on the Honor Board; earned an award for the best-written legal brief in an annual school-wide competition; and won the prestigious Miller Cup, given to the winner of the school's Moot Court competition. His undergraduate degree was earned at Hunter College in The Bronx, City University of New York, where he held a New York State Regent's Scholarship.

His pro bono efforts have included service to the New York State Bar Association's Mass Disaster Response Team, a small group of lawyers who provide free legal assistance to victims of disasters as well as to the Nassau County Bar Association's Conciliation Committee, a mechanism whereby consumers of legal services sought speedy arbitration of fee disputes with attorneys. He also served as a trustee and a term as president of the Freeport Memorial Library.

Furman serves without compensation as the president and chairman of the board of directors of the Woodward Children’s Center in Freeport, New York. He has twenty years of association with the Woodward Center, a state-certified not-for-profit school recognized for its service to special-needs children. He also devotes time as a director of the Nassau County Police Reserves, an organization that assists state and county police and provides college scholarships to children of police officers, as well as a board member of Nassau County Law Enforcement Exploring.

In addition to his own practice, Furman is of-counsel to a premier law firm with an international reputation for assisting accident victims.

Link to Glen's obituary

Link to Beverly's obituary