Charles Lloyd Bauer

Charles Lloyd Bauer, age 90, of Florida, passed away on March 27, 2024.

A Graveside service will be held on Monday April 22nd at 11am in Beaverdale Memorial Park. 

In his own words, below is Charles’ obituary:

I was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey at noon on July 4, 1933, but returned to my actual home in New Haven, Connecticut when a few days old. (My mother preferred to be at her mother's home in Elizabeth for my birth rather without family or friends in New Haven, CT).

I played hockey at West Haven High School, winning several awards and participating in All New England tournaments in Boston, Providence and elsewhere. After one game (or practice) at the New Haven Arena, Bill Harkness, lacrosse coach at Yale University, entered the dressing room and told me that his brother, Ned Harkness, hockey coach at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), suggested that I attend RPI, rather than Boston University, which was the ultimate goal of all protestant New England hockey players. After correspondence with Ned and encouragement from my parents, I enrolled in relatively unknown RPI in 1951.

My dormitory window in freshman year faced directly toward Theta Xi fraternity. Mainly because of its aesthetic English Tudor appearance, my roommate and I decided early on to join. Selecting RPI and then Theta Xi (often known as The taXi) were two of the best decisions in my early life. In addition to a healthy mix of brotherhood, fun and academics during three years living in the fraternity house, RPI hockey rose from the obscure (1951) to NCAA Division I champion at Colorado Springs in 1954. From Theta Xi and the great RPI hockey coach, Ned Harkness, I learned much about life, positive attitude, and cogent decisions, concepts which followed me throughout my professional career and into retirement. To this day, I maintain close contact with several fraternity brothers and hockey teammates, including several encounters in Clearwater, Troy and Las Vegas.

After a brief period at International Nickel Company and in the US Army, in 1957 I began graduate studies in the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Yale University, earning a master's degree in 1959 and doctor's degree in 1961. While in graduate school (1959), I married Janet Alice Weber. After 64 years our family consists of two children, David & Lisa, three grandchildren, Lucas, Kaitlyn & Marlee and one great-granddaughter, Rose.

After assessing many attractive employment opportunities in 1961, I selected a position as assistant professor in the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University (formerly Carnegie Institute of Technology) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I remained until retirement in 1998. During my tenure at Carnegie Mellon, I not only taught many undergraduate and graduate courses and conducted research, resulting in about 150 books and technical articles, but also was invited to consult and teach at technical institutes and universities in Japan, Germany (both East and West), Switzerland, France and the former Soviet Union. I was awarded an honorary doctor's degree, Docteur es sciences, from l’École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland in 1984.

During later working years and in retirement, Janet and I acquired homes in Leesburg, Florida, Clearwater Beach, Florida, Steinau an der Strasse, Germany and St.-Cyr-sur-Mer, France. This stimulating lifestyle helped us expand horizons, savor various cultures, and maintain linguistic skills.

My parents often emphasized that education is something that cannot be lost, stolen, discarded or squandered. The background I acquired during adolescence and thereafter is not absolute, but merely provides a foundation for the future. To underscore the value my parents placed on education, the Charles W. & Dorothy F Bauer Memorial Scholarship was established at RPI in 2006 in memory of my loving parents.

Finally, in 2022 I established the C. Lloyd Bauer ’55 Endowed Men’s Varsity Ice Hockey Coach to provide support for the rich legacy of hockey at RPI, a sport and culture that formed the foundation for so much of the success I’ve enjoyed in my life.

To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Charles Lloyd Bauer, please visit our floral store.