In his 25th reunion class book at Harvard, Brazil RPCV Bruce Fowler wrote that he had planned "three five-year phases" for his life after graduation in 1966: "The first was public service and finishing formal schooling; the second was to make a lot of money; third was to apply my newly generated riches to something in the public service."
BRUCE FOWLER, PEACE CORPS WORKER, ENTREPRENEUR
By Gloria Negri, Globe Staff
The Boston Globe
September 22, 2004
In his 25th reunion class book at Harvard, Bruce Fowler wrote that he had planned "three five-year phases" for his life after graduation in 1966: "The first was public service and finishing formal schooling; the second was to make a lot of money; third was to apply my newly generated riches to something in the public service."
Though Mr. Fowler may not have conceded it he was a man who set high expectations for himself, his wife, Diane Gayle Kell of Santa Fe, said yesterday he had accomplished two of his goals very well before his death from cancer at St. Vincent Hospital in Santa Fe, on Sept. 6. Mr. Fowler was 60 and resided in Lexington before moving to New Mexico three years ago.
While not accumulating millions, Mr. Fowler served in the Peace Corps in Brazil, worked for a Cambridge firm involved with providing affordable housing for low-income residents, and most recently was president of his own consulting firm, the LGM, with an international clientele of manufacturers of pharmaceuticals and biomedical devices that touched on the public good.
Mr. Fowler's entrepreneurial skills were honed at Harvard Business School, from which he graduated in 1971, his wife said. Not all his businesses were successful, she said namely Carplan, "an HMO for car maintenance" he started in Cambridge in 1978. Nonetheless, Mr. Fowler, a car aficionado since childhood, kept it going for five years, she said, and worked as "a mechanic with an MBA degree."
"Bruce had an interesting approach to life," Kell said. "He switched careers several times, alternatively working for others and attempting to succeed at entrepreneurship."
In Cambridge, Mr. Fowler served for more than a decade on the board of directors of the progressive Fayerweather Street School.
"He was known for his long hair and his trademark shaggy orange sheepskin vest," said his former wife, Judy Foreman of Cambridge, whose syndicated health column appears in The Boston Globe.
He also took part in curriculum reform and social justice issues while at Harvard Business School, and in antiwar protests in Cambridge, often carrying his toddler son, Mike, to them.
"In recent years, Bruce sometimes claimed to have been a hippie, but I would tell him that was impossible," Kell said. "You can't be both a hippie and a student in the MBA program at Harvard."
Mr. Fowler was an avid hiker and swimmer. He swam competitively as a youngster at the YMCA and elsewhere, and later at Harvard, where he was swim team captain in his senior year. As a member of the New England Masters Swim Club, Mr. Fowler set several long-standing records for his age group in breaststroke events at the 1984 US Masters Swimming National Long Course Championships.
Born on a leap year in Boise, Idaho, he was one of two children of William Fowler, an Air Force meteorologist, and Betty Jeanne (Lunde). The family moved to Toledo, Ohio, where he graduated in 1962 from DeVilbiss High School. He entered Harvard and majored in social psychology, graduating in 1966.
He and Foreman met during their college freshman year. They married a week after graduation and joined the Peace Corps, serving in Brazil for three years, living in Campinas. Mr. Fowler worked two hours away in Sao Paulo, building houses for people who lived in the "favellas" in tin shacks on top of a garbage dump.
"Bruce would teach the Brazilian men to do brick-laying so he would give them not only a house but teach them a skill," Foreman said.
On his return from the Peace Corps, he enrolled at Harvard Business School to complete his first five-year plan.
Mr. Fowler's first job after getting his MBA was with Cambridge Consulting Group, a business management firm. In 1974, he moved to Abt Associates in Cambridge, where he was deputy project director for a multimillion-dollar federal project to provide housing subsidies directly to the poor, instead of to developers.
Mr. Fowler and Kell met on the volleyball court at Abt. They were married 27 years.
After Carplan didn't take off, he went to Lotus Development Corp., the Cambridge software firm, where he was a project manager in the engineering and scientific division and was the primary author of a book on several of the company's programs. He left Lotus in 1987 and the next year founded his own software company, Laboratory Professional Systems. Four years later, he was recruited by Kemper Masterson Inc., a Belmont firm that provided consulting services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies regulated by the Federal Drug Administration.
Six years later, Mr. Fowler started his similar LGM firm, which took him and his wife to capitals around the world. He continued working in a consulting role until his illness was diagnosed in March.
Mr. Fowler's high expectations extended to the mountains he hiked.
"Bruce wanted to get to the highest point in every state," Kell said. "So we made it up the highest mountains in every New England state, except for Mount Katahdin in Maine, and to those in other states. Bruce had such high expectations of himself, he never realized how wonderful he really was."
In addition to his wife, Mr. Fowler leaves a son, Mike of Santa Fe; a daughter, Lindsey of Arlington; a sister, Cleo Gay Fowler of Santa Fe; and two grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. Sunday at Randall Davey Audubon Center in Santa Fe.
