Glenn Wesley Perušek was the eldest and beloved only son of Wesley Perusek and Patricia Ann Perusek (nee Ellison). He is survived by his two sisters; Dawn Katherine Stang (Mark), and Gail Patricia Perusek (Linda White); nephew Kevin Patrick Stang, nieces Emily Quinn Stang and Caroline Ellison Stang. He was a widower having lost his wife, Carol Christina Bergmark, in 1986.

Glenn was a lifelong labor activist, writer, strategic organizer, and gifted scholar. He held a tenured position as Political Science professor at Albion College from 1988 to 2006, serving as department chair for seven of those years. Glenn earned a B.A. summa cum laude from Kent State University in 1980 and earned M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Chicago, where he held Merriam Fellowships and won the Baker Prize, a research competition in the social sciences. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, the national scholarly honorary society, and was a journeyman member of the International Typographical Union (today part of the Communication Workers of America) in 1984.

Glenn served as director of the Center for Strategic Research at the national AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C. He worked on strategic campaigns at the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and as a research manager for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He taught at the Cornell University/AFL-CIO program on strategic corporate research. He was a member of the Building Trades Academy at the School of Human Resources and Labor Relations at Michigan State University, and taught many students and labor union organizers with great enthusiasm and lasting impact.

Most recently, Glenn was founder and Executive Director of Perušek & Associates, LLC, a small strategic research firm that conducted economic and political research and developed strategic campaign plans for labor unions and advocacy organizations.

His publications include the books Shifting Terrain: Essays on Politics, History and Society; Depth of Field: Stanley Kubrick, Film, and the Uses of History; Trade Union Politics: American Unions and Economic Change; Labor, Power, and Strategy, and numerous articles and other publications.

Glenn was influenced by the ideas of Karl Marx, and Marxism was a constant thread in his development. His focus was to unify theory and practice and to link Marxism to other intellectual movements. He was driven by a fierce hunger to find ever better ways to understand root causes of oppression. On one hand, he labored to make visible the tragic forces that box people in and weaken their ability to act or dream. On the other, he was intensely alive to the unquenchable possibilities, agency, and dignity of people. His goal throughout was to help make the world more livable for the many by opposing policies that favored the few.

Glenn was always having conversations and bringing distinct viewpoints together. His work was dialectical, in the literal sense of miteinanderreden (dialectic in the original Greek sense means two people talking) and in the Hegelian-Marxist sense of synthesizing distinct research programs and political programs into new complex arrangements. His colleagues, friends, and family will continue to talk with Glenn, seek his counsel, and will miss his new and surprising moves and the joy of miteinanderreden with him. Glenn left us with a rich legacy of interventions to sort through. Our collective mood of sadness at losing him may over time soften as we remember the pleasure of our walks and talks and meals together and continue making sense of the world, as he was always doing.

Glenn travelled to Berlin, Germany on several occasions, studying the German language at the Goethe-Institut.  Berlin was his favorite city, but enjoyed trips to Greece, Italy, Scotland, France, Belgium, Canada and Mexico throughout his life. He was a skilled acoustic and electric guitar player, and enjoyed rhythm and blues, folk, and jazz improvisation. He filled hundreds of notebooks with his writings throughout his intellectual life. He was a dedicated, tireless, and gifted teacher, writer, and speaker, and influenced his students, colleagues and friends in enduring and positive ways. Glenn received heartfelt and genuine tributes to his legacy and everlasting impact via letters from friends and colleagues while on his deathbed. Glenn lived a rich, productive and fulfilling life, serving others with humility, empathy and enthusiasm, and at the young age of 66 years, met his terminal diagnosis with extraordinary grace, dignity, and courage.

The family sends our heartfelt thanks for the compassionate care to the medical professionals and staff of St. John Medical Center and the Ames Family Hospice House of the Western Reserve, both in Westlake, Ohio. Glenn had a real affinity for the Slovenian-American community in Cleveland, Ohio, and in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Slovenian National Home, 6417 St. Clair Ave., Cleveland, Ohio 44103. Donations may also be made to the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, 2085 Adelbert Rd., Cleveland, OH 44106.