Born in East Orange, N.J., Gordon came to us from St. John’s Episcopal School in Houston. At Princeton, he majored in physics and roomed with Michael McAshan and David Armstrong.
During his freshman year at Georgia Tech, Gordon requested a transfer application to Princeton but was told the University did not accept transfer students. He wrote back stating he had not asked to be accepted, but only asked for an application. That bravado and two consecutive 1600 College Board scores seemed to do the trick. Following graduation, he joined the Army and was sent to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif., to study Mandarin, working in cyber-espionage for the NSA on Okinawa.
Following his Army tour, he received a National Science Foundation grant to study Hindi at the University of Texas at Austin. A chance elective in economics was sufficient for him to seek his doctorate in that field. Gordon spent his career in Washington as a specialist in Social Security issues for the government and later as pension program analyst for Willis Towers Watson.
He is survived by his wife of 50 years, Betsy; son Parker; daughter Katherine Gaull; and four grandchildren.