Obituaries

Mr. Rocker was a federal employee almost continuously since World War II, when he served in the Army. He studied Turkish in an intensive immersion course at Princeton, in Officer Candidate School, and that experience sparked a lifelong desire to learn about other cultures.

After the war, he worked in Ankara, Turkey, on a contract with the International Cooperation Administration, an agency of the U.S. government, and for Ankara University from 1955 to 1957. He was an assistant budget and accounting auditor with the U.S. Agency for International Development in New Delhi from 1959 to 1961.

He held several positions with the federal government and in 1970, as a civilian, joined the Department of the Navy's Military Sealift Command in Washington. He retired in 1985.

In retirement, he spent a year as an assistant professor of accounting at Virginia Tech, where he served as team leader at the Gambian Management Development Institute in West Africa. He developed and taught courses and administered the project. He also taught business subjects part time at Mount Vernon College, Strayer College and Montgomery College, Rockville campus.

Mr. Rocker graduated from the City College of New York. He received a master's degree in business education from Teachers College at Columbia University in 1948. He became a certified public accountant in 1951.

He had enrolled in the Golden ID program for a doctorate at the University of Maryland's University College and was studying the effects of exercise on the elderly when his illness forced him to quit.

He was certified as a swimming and boating instructor by the American Red Cross in 1941. In retirement, he taught swimming to physically challenged people at the Jewish Community Center in Rockville.

His hobbies included photography, gardening and writing poems and letters. He was a member of the American Institute of CPAs, the Association of Government Accountants and the American Vocational Association. A longtime member of Temple Emanuel in Kensington, he served on the funeral practices and education committees.

Survivors include his wife of 54 years, Adele Rocker of Silver Spring; three daughters, Gail Beram of Voorhees, N.J., Janice Rocker of Pasadena, Calif., and Barbara Fox of Clearwater, Fla.; and four grandchildren.