- Date Of Birth: September 30, 1948
- Date Of Death: August 28, 2021
- State: Indiana
Stephen Edward Brewer died of cancer on August 28 in Lafayette, Indiana surrounded by his loving wife, Lloyd, and his family. He was 72. Born in West Lafayette in 1948 when his father was attending Purdue University, he returned to attend Purdue University himself, and in 1991 settled in West Lafayette with his family. He was an active and beloved member of the community.
The eldest of Edward and Joyce Brewer’s five children, Steve grew up in Findlay, Ohio where he raised homing pigeons and traveled to Turkey as an AFS foreign exchange student. He learned to fly, becoming a third-generation pilot and retained an avid interest in aviation throughout his life. He earned an undergraduate degree in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University in 1970. A college highlight was playing trombone in the Purdue All-American Marching Band at Purdue’s 1967 Rose Bowl victory. In 1972, he earned an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and moved to New York City to work for Pfizer. Steve married Elizabeth (Betsy) Wigton in 1975 and they welcomed two children, Ben and Cecily. He became Controller of the fiber- optic telecommunications division at Corning. In 1984, the family moved to the Los Angeles area where he co-founded a fiber optics company spun off from Corning. He then became Treasurer of Symbolics, an early artificial intelligence computing company.
In 1991 Steve and his family moved to West Lafayette when he accepted a position as a financial executive with Great Lakes Chemical Corporation. After nearly 25 years of marriage, he lost his wife Betsy to cancer. The warmth of the St. John’s Episcopal Church community supported him in his grief, and over the years, provided renewed purpose and deep friendships. It was here that he met Elizabeth Lloyd Bane. They married in 2002.
After retiring from Great Lakes, he dedicated his talents and passion for engineering, financial management, music, and his love of people to the community. Steve served on the Vestry and the music committee of St. John’s and was a founding board member of the Community Cancer Network, serving the broad needs of cancer patients. He also taught a course on entrepreneurship to undergraduate students at Purdue University. Over 12 years, he served as Chairman (and every other position) on the Board of Directors of the Purdue Federal Credit Union, and was awarded the Pyramid Award in 2016 for his service.
Steve’s warmth, kindness, and engaging curiosity will be keenly missed by his wife Lloyd; his children, Ben and Cecily Brewer and their spouses Sarah Brewer and Alton Buland; his grandsons, Graham, Owen, and Gideon; and his sisters, Rebecca Mitchell, Mary Ferguson, Sara Chenette, and Debra Day. The family would like to extend a sincere thank you to Steve’s amazing and dedicated medical team, including doctors Jose Azar and Kristin Hoffmann and nurses Jennifer Hilton and Gerri Wensloff of Indianapolis, as well as the support of family, friends, and the St. John’s Church family, especially the compassionate Rev. Dr. Bradley Pace.
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