Kenneth Martin Ferrin, an entrepreneur who started East Hampton Industries and worked for IBM in the early days of computers, died at home here on March 15. He was 92.
Mr. Ferrin took a job in the research lab at IBM in Westchester County in 1960, moving on to the company's Manhattan headquarters two years later. In 1965, he was a founding partner in Ultronic Systems, which, his family said, "digitized ticker tape and sent prices out to terminals," a technology that "morphed into Bloomberg terminals." He would later sell the company to JP Morgan Bank.
He founded East Hampton Industries on Newtown Lane in 1975. The company, which he ran with his wife, Patti, who survives, "designed and sold kitchen products," notably the Gravy Strain. In 1982 the company "launched the PepperMate, a pepper grinder that can be seen in use by Chef Ina Garten on television today," his family said.
Mr. Ferrin was a member of the East Hampton Tennis Club and served on the board of the Nature Conservancy. The Ferrins were known to volunteer at the Ladies Village Improvement Society and would regularly host dinners for Authors Night, the East Hampton Library's annual fund-raiser.
An active person and traveler, he met his future wife on a tennis court in Capri, Italy, in 1972. They subsequently moved to East Hampton and were married here on Thanksgiving in 1977.
Ski trips took the couple first to Aspen, Colo., then to Europe and on annual excursions by helicopter in Canada. Each spring and fall meant cycling adventures in Italy, France, Denmark, Sweden, and the Western United States. Mr. Ferrin took up fly fishing at the age of 78.
Born on Sept. 26, 1932, in the Bronx, Mr. Ferrin was raised by a single mother, Edith Dendo, and first-generation Ukrainian grandparents. He attended DeWitt Clinton High School for a short time before his mother married Adolph Ferrin and the family moved to Los Angeles, where he graduated from Gardena High School in 1951. He earned an undergraduate degree at the University of California, Los Angeles, before graduating in 1957 with a Ph.D. in mathematical statistics.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Ferrin is survived by two daughters, Leslie Ferrin of Cummington, Mass., and Melanie Ferrin of Dalton, Mass., and two grandchildren, Graeme Sloan and his wife, Aurie Sloan, of Hyattsville, Md., and Lucy Sloan of Louisville, Ky.
The family will gather to celebrate his life at a future date. Memorial donations can be made to the L.V.I.S., at lvis.org, or to a charity of one's choice.
