Wednesday, February 23, 2011
George Freeman was truly a wonderful man. I valued my long standing relationship with him. I am a lawyer practicing in the construction field in Albany. I met George many years ago through my then mentor Paul Richards. George helped me learn the pathways of the public construction landscape. There was nothing that dealt with construction that George did not know. He also was a very good judge of character in others. He was my most favorite choice as an arbitrator. He was involved in a number of cases in which I represented a party. He gave me my first award of $1,000,000 or more in a case where it was justified. He was not patsy. He called em as he saw em and he was almost always right. The stories were unforgetable. Tales of days on the Langenfelder road jobs to dealing with crooks and mobbed up guys who held SUCF contracts in the City to making architects produce complete designs - all great. Sometimes when I wanted a lift I would walk down the street to Coulson's -the news stand across the street from the Fund offices in hopes of running into George or his side kick and boss Jay Handwerger (SUCF General Counsel) to get a dose of George's philosophy. Sometimes it was a story from his days in the B17s flying on the death defying milk runs to deliver bombs to Hitler. I loved the man. I have held him in highest regard as a man of character and integrity. I have not seen him in several years but I sure miss him and I join you in mourning his passing. Please accept my most heartfelt condolences.
