Norton "Norty" Baskin Obituary (1929 - 2023)

Norton (“Norty”) Baskin, 93, passed away on Saturday, January 7, 2023. He was predeceased by his beloved wife, Marilyn (“Lyn”) Weiss Baskin, and son, Craig Baskin. He is survived by his beloved brother Howard and sister-in-law Cheryl Baskin of Pittsburgh, PA, his daughter Janice (“Jan”) Baskin and son Scott Baskin of Tampa, FL, beloved granddaughter Alexandra (“Avi”) Baskin of Paris, France, beloved grandson Joshua (“Josh”) and wife Shira Baskin of Baltimore, MD, and their daughters, Norty’s four great-granddaughters, triplets Aliza, Meira, Naomi, and Naava. He is also survived by niece Wendy and husband Jess Hutchinson of Pittsburgh, PA, grandnephew Zachary Hutchinson of Charlotte, NC, nephew Jeff Baskin of Tampa, FL, grandniece Alexa Baskin of Louisville, KY, the Kanel-Cermak family of Pittsburgh, PA, and the Fried and Sedwick families of Virginia. Norty was born and raised in Pittsburgh, PA. He graduated from the University of Pittsburgh at age 19 and earned his master’s degree from NYU at age 20. He worked in his family’s businesses in Pittsburgh, including serving as president of the Red Head Archery Company, among the largest in the country at that time. Norty started a long career with IBM in 1965 in Pittsburgh as a manufacturing industry system engineer. He later moved to Cleveland to manage the Ohio Bell Telephone Company account, and then to Tampa where he was the National Account Manager of IBM’s GTE (now Verizon) account. He retired from IBM in 1994. Norty, or “Gaga”, as named by his beloved grand-daughter Avi, was excellent at building and fixing just about anything and passed along his engineering and logic acumen on to her. They worked on many projects together from the time that he gave Avi her first tool box at the age of three. They also grew butterfly and tropical gardens together, leading to Avi’s lifelong love of gardening and interest in ecology. Her Gaga was Gaga to all of her friends, and remains so even to this day. He was always so proud of her many accomplishments. Norty loved playing the clarinet and bassoon as a high school and college student, including playing the bassoon in the University of Pittsburgh Marching Band when he was 14 years old. He was an avid reader, loved music of all kinds but especially symphony and opera, loved his dogs, and was a dedicated (but not very good) golfer. He played several days a week with a retiree group at Carrollwood Country Club until the group disbanded due to a lack of players. He finally gave up golf when, as he said, “I had to quit when I started shooting my age in nine holes.” Norty also enjoyed monthly lunch with a group of IBM retirees which continued for 20 years until that, too, disbanded from lack of participants. In 1947, Norty was involved in restarting a Kappa Nu fraternity chapter at Pitt, which eventually was merged with Zeta Beta Tau (ZBT). He was a trustee of ZBT at The Ohio State University during the ‘70s. He became involved in starting a chapter at the University of South Florida and served as a chapter advisor. For several years, he was on the board of trustees of Congregation Kol Ami. For the past five years, Norty was blessed to be a member of Congregation Mekor Shalom. Norty’s wicked sense of humor and loving devotion to his family will be deeply missed. In lieu of flowers, donations would be appreciated to Congregation Mekor Shalom, Collie & Homeless Pet Rescue of Tampa Bay, or Tampa Bay Beagle Rescue.