HEALTH
Berkshire Senior Spotlight
A Visit with Nick Boraski
Elder Services’ Berkshire Senior, June-July 2021
By Susan Guerrero and Christopher McLaughlin
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Parents have life-long impacts on their children and ultimately, the ability to change and improve hundreds of lives. Nicholas “Nick” Boraski, a retired General Electric Company manager and vicepresident, is living proof of this. As a child, Nick knew the effects of the Depression very well. He remembers the evening when there was a knock on the door and a man in bib overalls with a six-year-old child asked his mother for food. Nick recalled, “Mom took them into the kitchen, and while they ate, bundled up clothes for the boy. I never forgot that action by my mother”. “She gave food because we didn’t have any money,” Nick said of his mother, a Ukrainian immigrant. His parents had a big vegetable garden and could share the food they grew. That one incident with his mother giving the man and his little son food and clothing affected Nick for the rest of his life. Nick’s father was also a Ukrainian immigrant. He worked at Crane & Company while he and his wife raised seven kids. All of the children graduated from high school and four went on to college, including Nick. Five served in the military. After high school, Nick attended Duke University for one semester before joining the U.S. Navy at age 17. He served for a year and a half. Thanks to the G.I. bill, which “helped tremendously,” Nick was able to return to college. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Massachusetts. He liked working with things all his life so engineering was a good choice for him. General Electric hired Nick in Schenectady in the Engineering Training Program. He ended up in management, never actually
doing much engineering, he said. He became head of the Pittsfield Transformer and Ordnance Divisions and had thousands of people working under him throughout the years. Sitting in the front lobby of his home on South Street, Nick thought back to his days as a manager. He said he had the ability to listen to people, a skill many managers lack. He prided himself in prioritizing safety, quality, and profit at GE, where his career spanned 39 years. He retired in 1988 as Vice President of the Defense Systems Division at GE. “My secret to success was that I listened to people,” Nick said. “I would tell people, “If I ask you to do something and it isn’t working, stop it and start over.” He is very proud of a prized possession, a metal “management degree” that 30 managers who worked for him made for him when he was transferred. Nick met his late wife, Ruth, on a beach. The couple married and raised a son and two daughters. His son is now a dentist in Pennsylvania. The girls, both teachers, live in California and Massachusetts. He and Ruth were married for 55
years. Nick has six grandchildren and four great-grands who live in California, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Canada. Nick and Ruth worked closely together to establish their philanthropic endeavors. “She was just as generous as anyone I know,” he said of his late wife. The organizations Ruth and I thought needed help or the ones the United Way directed us to were the ones we helped,” he said. Funds administered by the Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation support two of Ruth’s favorite programs, Girls, Inc. and the Meals on Wheels Program. The latter provides meals and wellness checks to hundreds of Berkshire County seniors. Looking back, Nick said he and his late wife had always been involved in helping churches and schools. “We were (initially) normal givers,” he said. They were involved in working with three colleges, UMass, MCLA, and Berkshire Community College. At the latter, he helped develop an engineering certificate pro g ram. Students in this “feeder” program would get a two-year degree and then finish a four-year engineering degree at UMASS. The Governor appointed Nick to the Board of Regents. He has been awarded two honorary doctoral degrees. Nick established the Charles and Sadie Boraski Scholarship Fund for Wahconah High School, plus other schools and the Girls Club and Boys Club. Between work and philanthropy, Nick also managed to coach junior football. He loved golfing, skiing and fly-fishing and earned a pilot’s license. He flew for 20 years. On his very last flight, a friend, Lynn Lyons, took over as pilot while Nick snapped photos of First Congregational Church. “We needed photos of the First Congregational Church for a project,” he explained. “I had Lynn fly over the church while
I took the photos. Our project to improve the exterior of the church was approved by the Mass Historical Commission and we received $130,000.” Ruth became very ill with cancer for about a year and died 10 years ago. Asked how he handled the grief of losing his life-long partner, Nick’s voice lowered. “I was crushed,” he said. He had to “just keep living” without his beloved Ruthie. Nick has plenty of opinions on what is happening in society. As the son of refugees, he said he has “no problem” with refugees coming into the United States to live and work. “We’d be a hell of a lot better off to let refugees like my parents in and throw some others out,” he said. He’s also concerned with some of society’s problems such as the homeless and poverty. As for tax reform, he’s for that, too. “We have to shift the economy,” he noted. “I’m concerned we have so many poor people.” President Joe Biden’s plan to have businesses give more is a “good thing,” Nick noted. “We should tax everyone equally based on income calculated by fixed, understood rules.” Although he has slowed down during his ninth decade of life, Nick still gets many phone calls from people wanting him to be involved in a project or requesting financial assistance. He is quick to mention that he thoroughly enjoyed his career as well as all the philanthropic endeavors he and Ruth have been involved in. He said if given the opportunity of living his life over again, he would do nothing differently. He would like to be remembered as “a successful son of two immigrants who was taught to help the community.” “I’m very proud of what we have done,” he said, and so are thousands of people whose lives Nick and his wife so unselfishly touched throughout the decades.
