Eric Hemel: May His Memory Be a Blessing

Eric I. Hemel died on July 27, 2025, while vacationing with his wife and close friends on Kezar Lake in Center Lovell, Maine. He was 72.

Eric loved to travel the world by bicycle and by foot—preferably with family members in tow. On a walking trip with his wife, Barbara Morgen, in Vietnam in 2003, Eric became concerned about the large number of children in rural areas who were not in school, and he decided to do something about it. Eric and Barbara founded a scholarship program that has paid school fees and provided books, uniforms, bicycles, and after-school tutoring to thousands of children from low-income families across Vietnam over the last twenty years. Eric also visited hospitals in nearly every province of Vietnam to bring continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machines to neonatal units. His efforts have saved thousands of prematurely born infants from death or brain damage in Vietnam and other parts of southeast Asia.

Thei Hemel's work in Asia was featured in an article on Scarsdale10583.com in 2014.

A cycling accident in October 2023 interfered with Eric’s ability to travel, but Eric continued to revel in the presence of his six grandchildren, who called him “Opapa” and clamored for his goofy animal impressions and spirited readings of picture books. He and Barbara celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary earlier this month.

Eric was born in Chicago on November 9, 1952, to Albert Hemel and Hertha Kreider. His father was an electrical engineer who changed the family’s last name from Himmelstein in response to antisemitism; his mother fled from Austria after the Nazi invasion and spent time in a refugee camp in Cuba before coming to Chicago. Eric was raised in Skokie, Illinois, until the end of ninth grade, when his family moved to Los Altos, California. After earning a bachelor’s degree, MBA, and PhD in economics at Stanford, Eric went to work as a budget aide to Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and as a senior policy analyst on Ronald Reagan’s 1980 presidential campaign. He later served as a senior policy adviser on President Reagan’s domestic policy staff, staff director of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers, and chief economist at the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. After moving with his wife and two children from Washington, D.C., to Scarsdale, N.Y., Eric worked in the finance industry for nearly three decades, including as co-head of U.S. equity research at Merrill Lynch.

Eric is survived by his wife, Barbara Morgen; his children, Deborah and Daniel Hemel; his son-in-law, Doug Stone; his daughter-in-law, Emily Blumberg; his six grandchildren, Nathaniel, Rebecca, Leah, and Elijah Stone, and Abraham and Helen Blumberg-Hemel; and his brother, Neal Hemel.

Eric Hemel's funeral will be held this Wednesday, July 30, at 1pm, in the main sanctuary at Congregation Kol Ami, 252 Soundview Ave, White Plains, NY. A burial will follow at Mount Hope Cemetery, 50 Jackson Ave, Hastings-On-Hudson, NY. Eric's family will sit shiva at the following places and times:

-- Wednesday, July 30, from 5pm to 8pm, at the home of Barbara Morgen, 10 Jefferson Road, Scarsdale, NY (service at 7:30pm)
-- Thursday, July 31, from 5pm to 8pm, at the home of Barbara Morgen, 10 Jefferson Road, Scarsdale, NY (service at 7:30pm)
-- Sunday, August 3, from 4pm to 7pm, at the home of Deborah Hemel and Doug Stone, 268 Nelson Road, Scarsdale, NY (service at 6:30pm)
-- Monday, August 4, from 4pm to 7pm, at the home of Daniel Hemel and Emily Blumberg, 28 West Houston Street, #23A, New York, NY (service at 6:30pm)

Donations in Eric's memory can be made to the Pacific Links Foundation, https://pacificlinks.org/donate, the organization that administers the SEEDS program that Eric co-founded. Friends and family are urged to enjoy a spray of Reddi-wip whipped cream directly from the can in celebration of Eric’s life. May his memory be a blessing.

Friends and family are urged to enjoy a spray of Reddi-wip whipped cream directly from the can in celebration of Eric’s life. May his memory be a blessing.

Longtime friend Michael Blumstein said, “Eric will long be remembered for his intellect, wit, warmth and generosity. He left a mark that few of us will forget.”