Moses M. Malkin, a longtime summer resident of Aquinnah and of Sun City Center, Fla., died Dec. 11 of heart failure. He was born on Sept. 18, 1919.

Known as Moe, he was a man of intellectual curiosity who had a broad variety of interests and skills. Born in Revere, Mass., the fifth child and the identical twin son of Annie and Irving Malkin, he grew up in Brookline. He was a proud graduate of the Edward Devotion Grammar School, which he loved, and Brookline High School, where he and his twin brother played football, causing identity problems for the coach.

In 1941, he graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, having been elected to Phi Beta Kappa. It was there that he met a classmate, Hannah Lacob, whom he later married, becoming a Carolina Couple in 1941. In addition to extracurricular activities, he was active in the civil rights movement working for housing in Durham and for an anti-lynching law, teaching English and handwriting in local prison camps, and speaking on brotherhood in black churches.

During World War II, he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps from June 1940 until November 1945. He trained as a receiver and transmitter operator and repairman at Fort Monmouth, Red Bank, N.J. He was assigned to the First Cavalry Division, First Signal Company until January 1942 and then went overseas for three and one half years. He served in Ireland, England, France and Germany, being honorably discharged as a technician fourth class.

After the war, he and Hannah resided in New York where they both attended Columbia University, from which Moe graduated in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, having been elected to Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society. Residing in New York city, he worked as an engineer at General Electric and for General Bronze. In 1951, he joined his brother in a trucking and warehouse business in New Haven, Conn.

That business was sold in 1957. Moe entered the insurance business where he specialized in pension planning and sales, in group insurance and in life insurance. Through self-study, he became a chartered life underwriter in 1963 and an enrolled (pension) actuary in 1978.

In 1972, he organized Professional Pensions Inc. to provide pension plans and group insurance to nonprofit organizations and small corporations in the United States, but mainly in the Northeast. His focus was on community organizations, poverty programs and drug treatment programs where numbers of low-income and minority employees, often for the first time in their lives, were brought into mainstream pension and group insurance programs. Among his many awards, one of the most appreciated was being elected an honorary employee for 25 years of service to Action for Boston Community Development.

Moe remained president and then chairman of professional pensions until his retirement in 1992. During his tenure, he stressed the need to employ women in executive positions as well as to employ minority staff members and provided maternity leave long before it was required. For his innovative work in pensions and group insurance, he was nominated to Marquis Who’s Who. At his retirement, the business was sold to Anita Fiore, who became president, and to Michael DeBaggis Jr., who became vice president. He became a consultant to Professional Pensions, making monthly visits to them for five years.

Because of his interest in social and community affairs, he was the founder of the Milford, Conn., Family Counseling Association and of the Milford Child Guidance Clinic, for both of which he served as president and was elected a life member of the board. They merged and are now known as Bridges.

Moe also served as president of the Clifford Beers Child Guidance Clinic and of the Jewish Family Service of New Haven. For many years, he served on the finance committee of the Jewish Home for the Aged, where he was awarded The Crown of the Good Name. He also served on the board of the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of Greater New Haven.

Moe loved travel. Immediately after World War II, he and Hannah embarked on the first of many trips. A particular interest of theirs was archaeology, and they visited ruins in Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras. Many of these sites were in rainforests and difficult to reach, such as Tikal, but they persisted in their quest to see them. Having taken many photographic slides, Moe showed them on a number of occasions to schoolchildren. In the late seventies, he became president of the Archaeological Institute of America, New Haven branch.

Being a sports aficionado, because of his activities in high school and intramurals in college, he attended all but one Olympics beginning with Montreal in 1976 through Sydney, Australia, in 2000.

As an instrument-rated private pilot, he flew for many years, flying his Aztec to many parts of the United States on business trips and on pleasure. He often flew to the Vineyard with friends as passengers. He flew as well to Mexico and Alaska.

Moe was a voracious reader with interests in science, history and economics. He was a faithful reader of the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Scientific American.

He loved the Vineyard, deciding to settle there as a summer resident after a visit in 1968 of but three days. In only a month, he purchased what became the family’s home on Lighthouse Road in Aquinnah. He enjoyed walking in the woods and on the beaches.

He served on the finance committee of the town, on the board of the Taxpayers Association of Gay Head and on the negotiating committee to work with the Wampanoag Tribal Council of Gay Head for a settlement of the tribe’s land claim. To that end, he appeared before several committees of the U.S. Congress, urging passage of legislation to bring about that settlement.

Survivors include his wife, Hannah, and several nephews, nieces and cousins. He was pre-deceased by his sister and three brothers.

Funeral services will be held at Levine Chapel, 470 Harvard street, Brookline on Sunday, Dec. 16 at 11 a.m. His family would appreciate contributions to the Vineyard charity of your choice.

Interment will occur in the family plot in the Beth Shalom Cemetery in Everett.