- Date Of Birth: August 12, 1929
- Date Of Death: December 13, 2015
- State: Arizona
Nicholas S. Meris passed peacefully surrounded by his family on December 13, 2015 in Scottsdale, Arizona. He was born on August 12, 1929 in Newark, New Jersey to Mr. and Mrs. William Maskaleris. He attended East Orange High School where he was elected Senior Class President. After his family moved during his senior year, he graduated from Columbia High School in South Orange, New Jersey. He attended Rutgers University and in 1951 was drafted into the army during the Korean War. He served at Fort Dix, New Jersey for two years as their Personnel Management Specialist, and after his honorable discharge, he began his career in sales.
Nick married Joanne Spenzos in 1956 and they promptly moved to Denver, Colorado where they raised their three children. In 1967 they moved to Belmont, California where Nick was hired by Merrill Lynch and Company in San Francisco. He filled one of only three stock brokerage positions open with a total of 103 applicants. He trained in New York City on Wall Street and after passing the Series 7 stock brokerage license, returned to San Francisco. In 1971, Nick and Joanne decided to move back to Denver where he continued to work for Merrill Lynch as a stock and bond broker and coordinator for initial public offerings. In 1977 he was hired by Bache Halsey Stewart (now Wells Fargo Advisors) as manager of the Phoenix, Arizona office. As manager, he supervised hundreds of employees, and during his tenure opened new offices in Sun City, Scottsdale, Mesa and Yuma, Arizona, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Athens, Greece. He won numerous sales and performance awards and represented the American Stock Exchange and coordinated events for the state of Arizona. He was promoted to First Vice President and Senior Executive for Arizona in 1985. Nick started the first-of-its-kind “Seminars for Women Only” held at the Biltmore Resort annually, which drew large crowds with keynote speakers such as Chief Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and Mrs. Frank Lloyd Wright. In 1993 he represented the firm as Corporate Representative and Expert Witness in legal matters, arbitration and court hearings until his retirement in August, 1994. Nick and Joanne enjoyed traveling and they traveled extensively in Europe and have been to Israel, Africa, the Caribbean, Hawaii and Alaska. After his retirement, Nick became a volunteer for the Mayo Clinic Phoenix where he happily volunteered for 16 years in the Admitting Department, many of those years as Team Leader for their many volunteers, making many new friends and wanting to make the patients entering the hospital feel comfortable. He also became very active in the Desert Ridge community.
