Charles G. Dyer ’59, died on November 01, 2021, in Brunswick, Maine
(The following was provided by his family)
Charles “Chuck” Gibson Dyer died unexpectedly on November 1, 2021.
Chuck was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Volney and Doris Dyer on September 19, 1937, and was the beloved grandchild of the Gibson family of Dedham, MA, and the Dyer family of Quebec, Canada. He spent his youth in Newburyport and Salisbury and after graduating from middle school as class valedictorian, he studied at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire for the next four years. In 1955 Chuck continued his academic career at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. He interrupted his college education to begin flight training with the Navy at Saufley Field in Pensacola, Florida. There he “successfully met the demands of the most exacting and complex aviation training” (Rear Admiral J. C. Clifton), earning his Navy Wings in September 1959.
Returning to civilian life, Chuck married Karen Greenland in 1963 and resumed study at Bowdoin. He proudly earned his degree and his athletic letter in lacrosse—noted for scoring the first goal of the newly established lacrosse team—and graduated in 1965. Chuck continued his studies and received his master’s degree at Harvard Graduate School of Business in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Throughout each of his exciting young years he collected strong, endearing and long-term friendships.
In 1957, Chuck moved his family to Manchester-by-the-Sea where he enjoyed the next forty-eight years of life. He began his career as a pilot for Eastern Air Lines in 1967 and continued as a captain until his retirement twenty-four years later until Eastern’s dissolution in 1991. Chuck managed EAL pilot’s pension fund; Institutional Investor Magazine and Forbes Magazine featured his unique approach to investing in their 1974 articles about his significant innovations in institutional investing, a memorable quote, “I’m a dollar-a-year man, completely independent, and monitor $100 million in EA pilot pension assets.” During the 1970s, he initiated his institutional investing company, Hawthorne Associates, successfully managing diverse funds for companies, cities and unions. During Chuck’s years in business, among many entrepreneurial enterprises, he started Cape Ann Air and Paradise Island Airlines, and became a noted arbitrator for EAL Pilots, and his greatest joy was owning and flying his Navajo airplane.
He was a trustee of Columbia University and noted for the sale of the Rockefeller Center in New York City. He served on the board of the Navy Air College in Newport, RI, and the USS Constitution Museum in Boston, MA. He was a member of Essex County Club in Manchester where he served as a treasurer, and was secretary of his HBS section from his graduation in 1967 until his death.
Chuck was an ardent supporter of his children’s academic and athletic endeavors. He was proud of their achievements, his two sons followed in his footsteps to Exeter and his daughter to Bowdoin. In 2011 he retired to Brunswick and was an enthusiastic fan of all of Bowdoin’s athletic contests, enjoyed the challenges of auditing courses and the use of the college’s athletic training facilities. He is survived by his wife; by his children and their spouses, Charles Gibson Dyer, Jr. and Shoshanna Dyer, Emilie Dyer and Mads Øyen, Georges Hamilton Dyer and Michelle Dyer; and by eight grandchildren: Charlotte Barbara Dyer, Charles Gibson Dyer III, Jeffrey Woodbridge Dyer, Liv Virginia Øyen, George Haakon Øyen, Mary Hannah Dyer, Kyra Fleischman, and Talia Fleischman.