Harry S. Binakonsky ’47

Binny died Dec. 19, 2017. He was born Jan. 28, 1926, in the Pittsburgh suburb of Jeannette.

After high school he enlisted in the Navy and was sent to the V-12 program at Princeton, where his future career was focused on medicine. He had the wonderful fate of sitting next to Albert Einstein at a Passover Seder while at Princeton. After graduation he attended the University of Pittsburgh to study medicine, where on a blind date he met Jeannie. They were married in 1948 and had two children. After an ideal marriage, she died in 2003.

After earning a medical degree, Binny served in the Korean War. He returned to Pittsburgh and founded the Penn Group Health Plan, one of the region’s first HMOs. By the late 1990s the group had access to 100 physicians and seven regional offices. His many associates in the group gave Binny high praise for his leadership and creativity in the success of the endeavor.

Twenty years after its founding, the Penn Group lost its largest customer base, and Binny found the time to travel with Jeannie, spend winters in Longboat Key, Fla., and satisfy his love of art by making drawings and taking photographs.

The class remembers the contributions of this physician with thanks to his surviving daughter and seven grandchildren.