Susan Lipskin Ross | Construction manager, 53

Susan Lipskin Ross, 53, of Chestnut Hill, a manager and contracts administrator for Henkels & McCoy Construction Co., died of ovarian cancer Thanksgiving Day at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse.

Mrs. Ross graduated from Cheltenham High School and earned a bachelor's degree from Muhlenberg College in Allentown. She then worked on Richard Thornburgh's gubernatorial campaign in 1978 and was with his transitional team before becoming a press officer for the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry. She met her future husband, Andrew S. Ross, under the capital dome in Harrisburg where he was also working. They married in 1981.

In 1982, Mrs. Ross joined Kasco Construction Co. Inc., Montgomeryville, and took classes in blueprint reading and other courses useful in the construction industry at Spring Garden College and Drexel University. In the late 1990s, she joined Henkels & McCoy, an engineering and construction firm in Blue Bell.

A Phillies fan, Mrs. Ross was proud of Henkels & McCoy's work on Citizens Bank Park. She loved sports, especially baseball, which was natural since she was born Oct. 8, 1956, the day Don Larsen of the New York Yankees pitched the only perfect game in World Series history, her husband said.

Mrs. Ross was a member of the Random Garden club and served on the Ninth Ward Democratic Committee.

Besides her husband, who is chief deputy city solicitor in Philadelphia, she is survived by her daughter, Louisa Ross, and her father, Bernard Lipskin.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Dec. 19 in the chapel of Chestnut Hill Academy, 500 W. Willow Grove Ave.

Memorial donations may be made to the ALS Association, Greater Philadelphia Chapter, 321 Norristown Rd., Suite 260 Ambler, Pa. 19002. Mrs. Ross was an active member of the chapter's board. ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, claimed the life of her mother, Diane Lipskin, and her sister, Beth Ann Lipskin.