The Jérôme Lohez Foundation

History

The Jérôme Lohez September 11th Scholarship Foundation was established in November 2005, in honor of Jérôme Robert Lohez, a French citizen who perished in the World Trade Center's North Tower on September 11, 2001.

Jérôme was born on Jan. 3, 1971, in La Garenne Colombes, Hauts de Seine in France. He spent his childhood and adolescence in city of Lille, and in the French regions Alsace and Bourgogne.

Jérôme received his secondary and higher education in Science and Technology in Alsace. He later studied Computer Science at École pour L'informatique et les Techniques Avancees (EPITA) (College of Computer Science and Advanced Technologies), graduating in 1994. That year, Jérôme came to the United States as an exchange student, and matriculated from the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken New Jersey, with a masters of science degree in computer sciences.

The American entrepreunarial spirit caught the young Jérôme's attention. He first stayed in the United States while working for a startup company. His hard work, intelligence, excellent work ethic and team spirit were quickly recognized, and his talent launched his career. He was soon hired by Sun Microsystems as a software architect.

It was Jérôme's extraordinary reputation at Sun Microsystems that led the executives of NexxtHealth, a subsidiary of Blue Cross Blue Shield, to handpick him as the senior technology infrastructure architect for their firm. Jérôme and his team were scheduled to release a new product on Sept. 11, 2001. This product "would have been a breakthrough in the [health insurance] industry" a NexxtHealth executive says.

Prior to the creation of the foundation, Ms. Dening Lohez and friends set up the Jérôme Lohez Memorial Scholarship Award at the Stevens Institute of Technology, which became part of the school's endowment fund managed by Stevens. The foundation is now independent.