Linda C. Wenze

Linda (Grosinski) Wenze, a lifelong Long Island resident, teacher, world traveler, and loving mother and grandmother, died from Bulbar-Onset ALS on December 12, 2025, attended by family at her home in Huntington Station. She was 78 years old. Linda was born to Thaddeus Grosinski and Eleanor (Laudano) Grosinski at the Swedish Hospital in Brooklyn, New York on November 1, 1947. She graduated from Hauppauge High School in 1965. Throughout her schooling, she was known as a very hard worker who babysat frequently in her neighborhood. She worked at Kings Park Public Library the summer after graduation. Linda went on to enroll at Hofstra University, where she earned a B.A. in Psychology in 1969. She would complete an M.B.A. in Management at Long Island University in 1976. The following year, she joined the faculty at LIU – CW Post, and soon thereafter pursued M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Applied Research and Evaluation back at Hofstra, which she completed in 1980 and 1983, respectively. For 34 years, Linda served as a faculty member at LIU, teaching a wide range of topics, including statistics, organizational behavior, and health care administration. She taught thousands of students, many of whom would stay in touch after graduation to maintain enduring friendships. During her teaching career, Linda served as a consultant to Nassau and Suffolk counties. She became an integral part of the local public health response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s. She wrote and received the region’s first federal grant for HIV services and also worked to ensure that people who were diagnosed were documented so the Nassau-Suffolk region would meet the criteria to receive Ryan White HIV/AIDS funding through the Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act in 1992. After that, she developed the region’s federal grant application, guiding the proposal review process, and participated on the Nassau-Suffolk region’s HIV/AIDS planning council. As she wound down her teaching career at LIU, eventually retiring in 2011, Linda began to serve the Nassau-Suffolk Hospital Council as Coordinator of Emergency Preparedness Planning. She also continued her own education, completing an M.S. in Homeland Security at LIU in 2008 and developing new expertise in infectious disease outbreaks in the context of hospital emergency management. In her two decades in the Coordinator role, from 2003 to 2023, she conducted many “secret patient” exercises at local hospitals, disguising herself as a patient with mysterious symptoms and concocting stories about having returned ill from exotic travel, all the while surreptitiously assessing hospital performance related to emergency quarantine and notification protocols. Her last teaching experience was at the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration conference in Albuquerque this past April, where she presented on “The Role of Human Resources in Crisis Management.” Linda loved to travel and try new foods. With family and friends, she visited many of our national parks and countless locations abroad, including Botswana, Morocco, Namibia, Hong Kong, Russia, and Norway, and she enjoyed many trips to Universal Studios and Disney World, riding even the most aggressive rollercoasters as recently as 2024. She also loved to laugh – corny jokes, puns, cartoons of all kinds, and the now-defunct Annals of Improbable Research generated a joyful giddiness her family and friends will always remember. Linda was preceded in death by her parents and is survived by her daughter Susan, son-in-law Robert, and grandchildren Greta and Maryn (Nazareth, Pennsylvania), stepmother Teena (Mineola, New York), sisters Elisa (Shirley, New York) and Catherine (Port Townsend, Washington), brother-in-law Stephen (Santa Fe, New Mexico), and nephews Eric (Chicago, Illinois) and Evan (Seattle, Washington). A celebration of Linda’s life will be held in 2026 with arrangements forthcoming. In lieu of flowers, contributions in her memory can be made to the ALS Association (www.als.org).

Linda C. Wenze

November 1, 1947 - December 12, 2025