JAMES SERDY
71 and going strong: Serdy rows with the best Course II researcher overcomes serious injury and wins silver at 2011 CRASH-Bs
Seventy-one-year-old James G. Serdy has been rowing with the MIT Rowing Club for the past four years. In addition to working at the Laboratory for Manufacturing and Productivity, he wakes up to go rowing on the Charles from 6–8 a.m. every morning. James has “always been fascinated to watch the art of rowing,” he said.
In 2007 he heard about the rowing club from two members of his lab. A year later, he was convinced by Alison S. Greenlee ’11, a varsity rower, to train for the CRASH-B Sprints, an international indoor rowing competition. But this was no small task. In 2010 Serdy underwent a spinal fusion surgery to correct an injury he sustained over 20 years ago when he fell 30 feet onto a stone patio while installing a photovoltaic array on a demonstration solar house in Brookline. Serdy says he “promised the surgeon at [New England] Baptist Hospital that if all went well, I would go for gold at the CRASH-Bs a year later.” In 2011 the event was held in Agganis Arena in Boston, and Serdy finished second in his division.