Last respects for prominent Turks

 

Istanbul (Dunya) – Funeral services were held on Thursday for Arman Manukyan, 81, who taught accounting and auditing for 56 years at Robert College and the Bosphorus University and trained thousands of students in modern American management skills. 
 

He died from a heart attack on December 28.

 

Mr. Manukyan was popularly known among his students as the “Instructor with the Bow Tie,” because he always wore a bow tie at work.
 

A prominent member of Turkey’s Armenian community, Mr. Manukyan was the son of an Istanbul shoe store owner who fought in the Gallipoli campaign against the British and French and received an Ottoman medal for bravery in action.

 

He graduated from the elite Robert College and received an MBA in accounting and business administration from Miami University. 
 

After completing his military service, he joined the teaching staff of Robert College and eventually its successor, the Bosphorus University, where he taught for more than five decades combined. 
 

His students included the likes of Tansu Ciller, who became Turkey’s first woman prime minister, Guler Sabanci, the chairwoman of Sabanci Holding, and Coskun Ulusoy, the chief executive officer of Oyak.
 

Mr. Manukyan was the author of several books, including ‘The History and Evolution of Accounting’ published by Miami University.
 

Mr. Manukyan also ran his family trade representation business, traveling many times abroad, and served as president of the Sisli Sports club. He was a former high school and university basketball star.
 

He is survived by his wife Alis Manukyan, an opera soprano, his son, Roy Manukyan, an instructor of accounting and auditing at Istanbul Bilgi University, and his daughter, Cilda Tirpan, a corporate finance manager with building materials producer Lafarge Turkey.

 

Veteran journalist Umit Enginsoy
 

Umit Enginsoy, 52, who served 11 years as Washington correspondent of NTV and serviced the Hurriyet Daily News with his reports on Turkish-U.S. relations, died on New Year’s eve after he slipped and hit his head in his home in Ankara. A funeral was held for him in Ankara on Tuesday.
 

Mr. Enginsoy was a mechanical engineer turned journalist, having graduated from Ankara’s Middle East Technical University and specialized in the fields of diplomacy and defense, bringing out articles in numerous international newspapers and magazines.

 

Mr. Enginsoy was known as a hardnosed reporter who could dig out the facts in difficult, fast-moving international news stories. 
 

He joined the Hurriyet Daily News as a columnist in 2009 after returning to Turkey from Washington, where he worked as correspondent for the Turkish news channel NTV for 11 years. Mr. Enginsoy also worked for a number of newspapers and magazines, including Turkish daily Milliyet, American Defense News and the official Anatolian News Agency.

 

 

Pioneer Industrialist Asim Kocabiyik
 

Funeral services were held on Saturday for Asim Kocabiyik, 88,  a pioneer businessman who founded and led a steel-to-energy empire. 

From 1952  to 2001, he served as chairman of Borusan Holding, one of Turkey’s biggest conglomerates with a 2011 net income of $326 million on a consolidated turnover of $4.3 billion.

He was one of the leading supporters in the country for closer ties between Turkey and the European Union, and established joint ventures with German and Belgian corporations. 
 

Born in Afyon in 1924, the son of a wheat and bean wholesaler, he received a B.Sc. in economics from Istanbul University and studied English in England. 

He began working with his father, Ahmet Kocabıyık, in their iron and steel business while still a high school student. He took over running of the family business, when his father died in 1952. 
 

Borusan Holding, which he established, is one of the world’s biggest producers and exporters of welded steel pipes. The group has interests in flat steel output, automotive parts, energy, logistics and agriculture.
 

Mr. Kocabiyik believed that most of Turkey’s industries could withstand the increased competition when the country formed a customs union with the European Union on January 1, 1996, and would be able to attract foreign partners for big investments and projects. 
 

From 1983 to 1988, he was chairman of the Economic Development Foundation (İKV), a think tank which studies European Union policies and their effects on Turkish industry. 
 

In November 2001, he turned over Borusan’s management to his son Ali Ahmet Kocabiyik, and his two daughters, Zeynep Hamedi and Nukhet Ozmen, and to his trusted European-educated lieutenants, and retired..