Early Life
Jirair S. Hovnanian was born in Kirkuk, Iraq. His parents, who were ethnic Armenians had fled to Iraq in 1915 to escape the Armenian Genocide. Jirair's father was from Sebastia and his mother was from Malatia. Hovnanian's father, Stepan K. Hovnanian, owned and operated a construction company based in Baghdad. Hovnanian was one of six children in his family. He attended a Jesuit high school in Kirkuk.
The Hovnanian family, including Jirair, immigrated to the United States in 1948. The family settled in North Philadelphia. Hovnanian spoke very little English when he arrived in the U.S.
Hovnanian married his wife, Elizabeth Vosbikian. Her family had created the Quickie Manufacturing Corporation, which manufactured popular products such as the Quickie broom and mops.
Hovnanian graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1952 with a bachelor's degree in business.
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“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
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