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Where There's Spark Pilot, mill worker, inventor, venture capitalist, Arlindo

—Faye S. Wolfe

Arlindo Jorge IN THE SIXTIES, GUIDED BY the expertise of a friend, Arlindo Jorge ’50 became an investment advisor. “My mentor told me,” he says with humor in his voice, “always to buy stock that pays a dividend.” Jorge is still acting on that advice 40 years later. His recent gift of $100,000 to UMass Amherst to endow the Lin Jorge Scholarship Fund will generate a special return: the education of electrical or computer engineering students. When Jorge (pronounced “George”) was growing up in Ludlow, Mass., it was a mill town largely populated by immigrants—Italian, Irish, Polish, and Portuguese, like him. In 1942, the 18-year-old Jorge enlisted in the Navy. He landed in a Civilian Pilot Training program at Amherst College. After his tour of duty as a Navy torpedo bomber pilot in the Pacific, Jorge returned to Ludlow in 1946. He worked in a mill by day and attended school at night. When the G.I. Bill of Rights was passed, Jorge enrolled at UMass full-time. “That was the greatest thing,” he says of the opportunity given to thousands of vets. He spent his first two years on the university’s Fort Devens campus, which opened in 1946 to handle the huge postwar influx of veterans; it closed in 1949. “We had terrific professors,” he recalls, as well as great camaraderie among students, reminiscent of his Marine days. In Amherst for his junior and senior years, Jorge applied his aptitude for math and science to earning a B.S. in electrical engineering in 1950, the first year that degree was awarded. With a master’s from the University of Michigan, he became an engineer at the Sperry Gyroscope Company, where he researched klystrons—electron tubes used in radar, satellite communications, television broadcasting, and other applications. “It was original work, very satisfying,” he says. “We were doing things that had never been done. We had to come up with the ideas, then build the devices, then build the equipment to test the devices.” The U.S. government considered the work original, too; Jorge and a colleague were awarded a patent for a dual oscillator. In the 1970s, he switched gears, first becoming an investment advisor, then raising venture capital for hi-tech companies, including one that he and a partner ran called Syncor Industries. “I really loved engineering, and then running a company, raising money—I did it all with such relish,” he explains. “I’ve had a grand run.” Officially retired, Jorge stays active attending church, playing squash and golf, reading three newspapers a day, and, most recently, taking up contract bridge. When he visits western Massachusetts relatives, he sees his two grandnephews, Garrett and Nathan Fidalgo, both current UMass Amherst students. Garrett is a sophomore in pre-med; Nathan, a senior math major. “Mathematics is not just course work for me; it is and has always been my hobby,” says Nathan. “I’ve studied and read many math books. My great-uncle Lin has mailed me more than a few of them.” Jorge’s desire to foster learning was shared by his late wife, Evelyn, a teacher for 43 years. And it has led Jorge to give back to UMass Amherst and to Evelyn’s alma mater, the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. His latest gift, the Arlindo Jorge Scholarship Fund, has an Iberian twist: Strong preference is given to engineering students who show an interest in Portuguese language, literature, and culture. Preference is also given to those with financial need. By way of explanation, Jorge speaks of his days as a young Portuguese man in Ludlow. “When I came back from being in the service, there were hundreds like me, but only a handful of us went to school. Why didn’t the others go?” he still wonders. Jorge thinks that some didn’t go because they weren’t encouraged to value education. “My mother and father instilled in me, ‘You’ve got to go to college.’ They had such a strong belief in education.” As does Jorge. “We have to educate kids,” he says simply and matter-of-factly, adding modestly, “I can afford it, so I do it.”

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