Elaine Moranz, Delaware County Planning Director in the mid-1970’s died of ovarian cancer on October 27th 2011 at Bryn Mawr Hospital. Born in Clayton, Missouri, Elaine attended the University of Michigan, where she met her future husband, Joel Moranz. After graduation in 1968, Elaine and Joel moved to Philadelphia to pursue further studies at the University of Pennsylvania, where Joel enrolled in the school of medicine and Elaine in the Graduate School of Fine Arts, from which she earned a master’s degree in City Planning. She worked at the Philadelphia City Planning Commission and then at the Delaware County Planning Department, where she served as director from 1976-1977. While at Delaware County she was also the principal author of County’s Administration Code, the ordinance implementing the Home Rule Charter approved by the voters in 1975.
Elaine received a Law Degree from Penn in 1980 and joined the firm of Meltzer & Schiffrin, which later merged with Fox, Rothschild, O’Brien & Frankel. As a partner at Fox Rothschild, she specialized in commercial real estate law. In addition, Elaine, Joel and their close friend Jana Paley renovated an 1884 National register commercial property in Ketchum Idaho receiving an award from the American Institute of Architects in 2010.
Although not a practicing planner at the time of her death, Elaine always appreciated her planning roots, and her legal accomplishments show how a planning background can be useful basis for other endeavors