Stephentown – Burt Swersey, who made life better – and more inspiring – for students at RPI for more than two decades, died unexpectedly March 9 at age 78 near his home in Stephentown, N.Y. True to his ethos, he passed away while delivering soup to a homebound neighbor.
“Don’t do nonsense!” Those words resounded, again and again, in the ears of students in Burt Swersey’s Inventor’s Studio course. Swersey was known to repeat himself, if that’s what it took to redirect the young linear thinkers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute into becoming engineers of change.
“Make change happen that will have significant benefits for a billion people,” he implored last year while accepting the Sustainable Practice Impact Award from the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance. “What did you do in your life? Well, I made life better for a billion people!”
Swersey was a native of New York City who grew up in the shadow of Yankee Stadium. He attended Bronx High School of Science and then Cornell University. It was during his senior year in Ithaca that he met the love of his life, Alice. They were married in 1959.
Swersey was an innovative, unconventional thinker with a drive to do good in the world long before joining a college faculty. After serving in the Army and then working at Polaroid and Sylvania, he founded four medical technology companies, securing 15 patents along the way. In 1978, he and his wife bought a farm in Stephentown and founded Shadowbrook Nursery, selling premium azaleas, rhododendrons, hydrangea and other plants for more than 20 years. The Swerseys, who moved from Westchester County to Stephentown full-time in 1988, were original members of The Chatham Synagogue Netivot Torah.
Though he loved working on his farm, it was a chance encounter with a customer, a teacher at RPI, that dramatically changed his life. Swersey mentioned his engineering and entrepreneurial experience and was invited to give a guest lecture, which led to teaching full-time.
For the next 23 years he encouraged, mentored and called on his students to dig deep inside themselves and develop world-changing ideas. He established a new curriculum centered around innovation and creativity and a number of his students went on to start successful companies.
In addition to his wife of 55 years, Swersey is survived by his son, William, and two daughters, Sarah and Rachel, his brother, Arthur, and six grandchildren. He was interred at Chatham Rural Cemetery.