Andrew Karp, 59, WHS Graduate;
Former Resident of Westfield

Andrew Karp, a 1975 Westfield High School graduate, died at his home in Sonoma, Calif., on Thursday, May 26, 2016.

Andrew was born in 1956 at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark and lived with his parents and sister in Summit and Glen Rock, N.J., as well as in Mt. Lebanon, Pa., before moving with his family to Westfield in 1968. Andrew attended Washington Elementary School for sixth grade and then completed grades 7 to 9 at what was then called Roosevelt Junior High School.

While a Roosevelt student Andrew wrote for the school’s paper, the Rough Rider, and was student council president during the 1971-72 school year. He took the lead in organizing charitable donations from RJHS students to memorialize their classmates, John and Fred List, after they, their sister, mother and grandmother were found murdered in the family home in Westfield in late 1971 in what later became infamously known as the “List Family Murder” case.

Andrew was a reporter and editor of the student newspaper, the Hi’s Eye, and also was active in political campaigns at the local, state, and national levels while attending WHS.

He also worked part-time at the Friendly’s Ice Cream shops in Mountainside and Scotch Plains, popular “hangouts” for area young people at the time.

After graduating from WHS, Andrew moved to Washington, D.C., where he completed undergraduate
and graduate degrees in political science from George Washington University. He served as a student intern in the offices of two members of Congress and then worked in several political/lobbying jobs before moving to the private sector in roles with Federal Express Corporation, first in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and then in the San Francisco Bay Area, to which he moved in 1986. He first lived in Alameda and then in San Francisco before moving to the historic wine country city of Sonoma, in 2000.

After leaving FedEx he worked in the management consulting services arm of what is now
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan and then at Pacific Gas and Electric Company
before starting his own consulting firm in 1994, Sierra Data Science, which specialized in applying
SAS Software tools to analyze data for its clients and in teaching others how to use various
aspects of the product.

He truly loved to travel, both domestically and to other countries, and to take many photos on
his trips. Among his favorite vacation venues was Alaska, to which he made numerous visits over 30
years, many of which involved extended travel to the most remote parts of the state via the Alaska
Marine Highway Ferry system.

He was divorced and had no children.

Andrew’s father, Harry R. Karp, died in 1990. He is survived by his mother, Ruth Karp, and his sister,
Amy Wallach, both of Freehold Township, N.J., and by Amy’s two children, Elle and Harry.

Source: Westfield Leader, Thursday June 30th 2016