The Foreign Service Journal, October 2010

O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 59 portion of the collection to the De- partment of Classical Studies, Anthro- pology and Archaeology at the University of Akron. This donation al- lows students to explore the mysteries of the ancient Near East without leav- ing the campus, and provides the basis for numerous projects and research. Throughout the years, Mr. Akins was an avid gardener and a patron of the Washington theater and arts com- munity. He enjoyed the company of his three grandchildren and visiting the mountains of westernMaryland. Fam- ily and friends recall his love of the Washington Opera, Shakespeare The- ater and Arena Stage. They also re- member his selfless generosity, great sense of humor, strong moral values and the love that he has shown to those he left behind. Amb. Akins is survived by his wife of 56 years, Marjorie Abbott Akins, of Mitchellville, Md.; his son Thomas A. Akins of Falls Church, Va..; his daugh- ter Mary Elizabeth Akins Colvill of McMurray, Pa.; grandchildren Mar- garet, Grace and Caroline Akins; and two brothers, Kenneth and Donavan of Port Clinton, Ohio, and Phoenix, Ariz., respectively. Aaron L. Benjamin , 78, a retired FSO with USAID, died on June 13 at the Ashland Community Hospital in Ashland, Ore., of complications from pneumonia. Mr. Benjamin was born on March 21, 1932, in New York City, the eldest son of Samuel — a professional trum- pet player and veteran of World War I — and Minnie Eisgrau Benjamin. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 1949. A year later, he enrolled in Brooklyn College, receiving a B.A. in urbanism in 1954. He earned his mas- ter’s degree in city planning fromNew York University’s Graduate School of Housing and Planning in 1959. He paid his way by working as a waiter in the “Borscht Belt” resorts of the Catskills. After completing his formal educa- tion, Mr. Benjamin spent 12 years as an urban planner and housing special- ist in Zurich, Los Angeles and New York City, where he worked in a senior capacity for the city’s Housing and De- velopment Board. Previously, he had worked for the architectural firms of Victor Gruen and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. While living in New York, he was hired by the City of Elizabeth, N.J., to be its director of planning and development. He also taught courses at the Pratt Institute and the New School for Social Research on the ef- fects of urban renewal on city life. In 1967, Mr. Benjamin joined the Foreign Service as a housing and urban development officer with USAID. During a 22-year diplomatic career, he served in Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Nica- ragua, the Dominican Republic and Egypt. Frequently assigned to these countries following a devastating earth- quake or hurricane, he was involved in programs to plan and implement their reconstruction, develop small busi- nesses, promote exports, and design disaster preparedness and response programs. In Bolivia, for example, he helped to develop a savings and loan system to funnel money into construction for low- and middle-income housing, for which Bolivia’s Central Bank offered him a golden “Key to the City.” In Nicaragua, following the earthquake that leveled Managua in 1973, he was instrumental in creating Las Americas, a planned community to house the thousands left homeless that still sur- vives to this day. He was nominated for a Rockefeller Service Award for his achievements there. While living in Latin America, he developed a strong interest in Latin American art and antiquities, and sev- eral of the pieces he collected are now housed in the Museum of Man in Santo Domingo. He later served as a volunteer archivist for the Smithsonian Institution’s Division of Anthropology. Following his retirement from the State Department in 1989, Mr. Ben- jamin settled in Arlington, Va., and worked as a consultant in urban devel- opment in Latin America and for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. After a yearlong camping trip throughout the United States, he moved to Ashland, Ore., in 1998. Drawn by the city’s beauty, civic con- cerns and cultural life, Mr. Benjamin settled in the house of his dreams, de- signed by architects from Frank Lloyd Wright’s center, Taliesin West. He was an enthusiastic participant in Southern Oregon University’s edu- cational program for seniors, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, and au- dited history and social sciences courses at SOU. He was also a mem- ber of a local book group and the Amigo Club, fostering Ashland’s sister city association with Guanajuato. A longstanding film buff, photogra- pher and news junkie, he regularly lis- tened to public radio and public TV, recording thousands of programs on tapes that now line the walls of his garage. And having been a bass player in a small jazz group in his youth and later taking guitar lessons in classical Spanish music, he collected records, tapes and musical instruments, donat- I N M E M O R Y