Johan Huibert Zeeman III, a longtime resident of Palm Beach,
Florida, and Warren, Vermont, was born in Soerobaja, Java, on February
23, 1928. He graduated from Geelong Grammar School in Melbourne,
Australia, then the Royal Netherlands Naval Academy. His father, Dr. J.
H. Zeeman II, was a Dutch ambassador serving over the years in Iran,
Laos, Thailand and Cambodia, Communist China, and finally Denmark.
Zeeman's stepfather was Admiral Frits W. Coster who commanded the
Allied Naval forces that escaped from Europe to Australia during World
War II. His mother was Anna Caterina Cramer, an opera singer. Young
"Hans," as he was called, served as a lieutenant in the Royal Dutch
Navy from 1949 until 1954, navigating a naval vessel in the Dutch East
Indies and New Guinea.
After his marriage in Palm Beach in 1954 to Joan Javits, niece of the
late New York senator, he was released from the Dutch Navy and moved to
Larchmont, New York, becoming a U.S. citizen and working until 1963 as
a financial analyst for New York Stock Exchange firms L.F. Rothschild
and Andresen and Co.
In the 1960s, he served as an executive of Empire Millwork in New York
and then as president and CEO of Powr Pak Inc., a Connecticut aerosol
company that introduced Silly Soap for kids. From 1965 to 1968, he was
president and CEO of Educator Biscuit Company in Lowell, MA, and VP of
Corporate Development at Victoria Investment Corp, its parent company.
From 1968 until 1973 he served as president of Apollo Industries, an
American Stock Exchange company that developed and supplied uranium and
heavy metals. He also made a winning bid for a gasline from Iranian
NOIC through Russia to East Germany.
In the 1970s, he raised the initial funding for the new telephone
company MCI with his close friend William McGowan and was key director,
resigning after Mr. McGowan's death. Other boards on which he served
were Priva, a company with leading technology later put to use for
Homeland Security, and Thinking Pictures, a developer of a novel
electronic technology for advertising industries. In the 1990s, he was
CEO of Condyne Electronics, Inc.; a director of HDA International,
Inc., a leading European manufacturer of computer parts for IBM, Sony,
etc.; a director of Telecomm, Inc., a phone company and chairman of the
executive committee of Teklicon, a high-tech consulting company in
Mountain View, CA, specializing in litigation support.
In later years, he became corporate chairman of Mariner Financial,
consultants; key director of New Horizon Diagnostics, Inc.,
manufacturing biomedical products; a founder of Oncure, a chain of
radiology centers based in Jacksonville, FL; and a director of Neogenix
Oncology Corporation, a company with revolutionary products at FDA for
fast-track approval as a cure for pancreatic cancer.
John "Hans" Zeeman leaves his wife and companion of 55 years and their
children Jonathan and Suzanne Carmick Zeeman and granddaughter Zoe;
Eric and Andrea Zeeman Deane and grandchildren Kaeli and Jessup; Eloise
Zeeman and granddaughter Lily; Mark and Phoebe Zeeman Fitch and
grandson Duncan; and Brian and Merrily Zeeman Bodell and grandchildren
Cotton and Ellery.
A celebration of his life will be private.
Donations could be made to the American Cancer Society aimed at finding a cure for small cell cancer.
