Thursday marked five years since the plane crash that took the lives of two prominent Rochesterians, Larry and Jane Glazer.
The Glazers made their mark on the Rochester area and its skyline in a number of ways. Larry Glazer headed up Buckingham Properties, which continues on with its large portfolio of area properties and Jane Glazer founded a company called QCI Direct.
Both died September 5, 2014, when their private plane crashed off the coast of Jamaica, after an apparent pressurization leak caused them to lose consciousness.
The family gathers every year to remember them, and daughter Mindy MacLaren says as tough as the loss of her parents was, in some ways, the fact that so many people knew and respected them helped get through that grief.
“It’s sad still, it’s unfair, but something that I said from the beginning is that we’re really lucky that we live in a community that cares a lot about my parents so we’re not alone in feeling so sad about them in our grief,” MacLaren said. She also says that buildings her father was involved in working on or developing like the Bausch and Lomb and Xerox buildings downtown is a legacy she can still point out to her own children.
“As we’re driving around and I can point places out to them and it really definitely is a point of pride and sort of, in a way I almost feel like the buildings kind of take on my parents in a way…they just sort of represent what they left behind and the legacy they left,” MacLaren said.
Peter Lovenheim is Jane Glazer’s brother, and wrote a remembrance of his sister in the Rochester Beacon, talking a lot about her first career as a teacher, and how that nurturing spirit continued on with her employees when she started her own company.
“She encouraged them to take risks, she helped them have confidence in their abilities; she enjoyed moving them up in terms of management within her company. And in helping them learn how to become successful, independent, men and women,” Lovenheim said.
Larry and Jane Glazer had a long history of philanthropy. The Glazer Music Performance Center at Nazareth College was opened in their name, and they were also active in leading a capital campaign and serving on the board of trustees at WXXI.
