Jane Snell “Nicki” Brunner, 68, Vero Beach
Jane Snell “Nicki” Brunner, 68, of Vero Beach, died Jan. 31, 2018, at Indian River Medical Center in Vero Beach. Nicki was born in Nashville, Tenn., and lived in Vero Beach for five years coming from Franklin Lakes, N.J.
She earned her Law Degree from New York University School of Law and her Undergraduate Degree from Vanderbilt University. Nicki worked as an attorney for the United States Department of Labor in New York City for 29 years before her retirement in 2006.
She was a member of Holy Cross Catholic Church, Vero Beach.
Survivors include her adoring husband of 33 years, John M. Brunner, of Vero Beach, whom she loved singularly and unconditionally; her dear beloved sister, Susie Snell Parker (David), of Rowlett, Texas; nephews, Joshua Parker (Mary), of Dallas, and Gregory Brown, of Manchester, N.H.; and niece, Jennifer Brown (Michael Strasser) and their daughter, Olivia Strasser, of Mahwah, N.J., for whom she was always there with love, support and encouragement, sister-in-laws; Suzanne Brunner of Charlotte, N.C., and Connie Brown (George) of Glen Rock, N.J.
Memorial contributions may be made to The Paulist Fathers, 1225 20th Avenue, Vero Beach, Florida 32960 in memory of Nicki Brunner.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated 10 a.m., Wednesday, Feb. 7, at Holy Cross Catholic Church, Vero Beach.
Hugo Emil Robert Uyterhoeven, 86, of Vero Beach
Hugo Emil Robert Uyterhoeven, 86, of Vero Beach, an expert on general management and a member of the Harvard Business School (HBS) faculty for more than 50 years, died on Monday evening, Jan. 29, 2018. Uyterhoeven was born on Aug. 6, 1931, in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, to a Belgian father and Dutch mother.
He grew up in Eindhoven, where he experienced the hardships of World War II, with its shortages, rationing, bombardments, and Nazi occupation. After the war ended, at the age of 17, he went to Switzerland, where he obtained his federal high school diploma and enrolled at the University of Zurich, where he received a doctor of law degree, magna cum laude. He then obtained a doctor of law degree at the University of Ghent in Belgium.
Uyterhoeven attended Harvard Business School from 1955 to 1957, graduating as a Baker Scholar with a MBA with High Distinction. He went on to earn a doctorate in business administration (DBA) from HBS in 1963. Before beginning his long and distinguished academic career at Harvard Business School, he worked as a research associate at the International Institute for Management Development (now IMD) in Lausanne, Switzerland, for a year. He then returned to Harvard Business School until retiring from the active faculty in 1998.
At Harvard, Uyterhoeven taught international business, business policy, competitive analysis and business and government in the international economy in both the MBA and executive programs. He served in several administrative positions, such as Business Policy course head, General Management Area head, chairman of the Advanced Management Program, and, Senior Associate Dean of External Relations as well as Executive Education. As Senior Associate Dean from 1980 to 1989, he restructured the School’s fundraising, its Alumni Class Reunions, and its public relations as well as its Corporate Relations. He was also in charge of the renovation of the School’s executive campus facilities and its main administrative building, Morgan Hall.
Uyterhoeven was a highly popular professor known for his lively (and at times intimidating) case and lecture classes. He wrote numerous cases and articles and co-authored two casebooks. His 1972 Harvard Business Review article, “General Managers in the Middle” ranked among the journal’s bestsellers.
Beyond the Harvard Business School campus, Uyterhoeven consulted for major corporations such as Chemical Bank, General Electric, Royal Dutch Shell, Unilever, and the Arthur Young accounting partnership. He was in demand as a speaker, giving talks in English, Dutch, French, and German. He served as a director of more than a dozen companies, including Brown Boveri (now ABB) and Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) in Switzerland; Degussa-Hüls in Germany; Bombardier in Canada; and Bendix, Bond International Gold, Carter Hawley Hale, Ecolab, General Cinema, Growth Fund of America, Harcourt General, the Schroder Bank, and The Stanley Works (now Stanley Black & Decker) in the United States.
A resident of the Boston suburb of Weston, Mass., from 1960 until 2005, Uyterhoeven was active in that town’s affairs, serving as a member of the Planning Board and the Conservation Commission and as president of the Weston Forest and Trail Association. In 1972, with development rapidly covering Weston’s remaining open space, he initiated a land acquisition plan together with Ken Germeshausen, that raised some $5 million and preserved some 10 percent of the town’s acreage as conservation land. Together with George E. Bates, he established new paths, amounting to about one-half of Weston’s 65 miles of trails.
Uyterhoeven moved to John’s Island in Vero Beach in 2002 with his wife of 21 years, Julie (Zhu), and remained active there until the end of his life, taking part in numerous cultural and outdoor activities. He loved to spend his days admiring the view of the Atlantic Ocean while listening to music and reading.
He served seven years as president of his condominium association, initiating and executing a major facelift of his building. As president, he restructured John’s Island’s management company, Community Condominium Services, Inc., by reducing costs while improving services and its hurricane protection practices. At the John’s Island Club, he was a regular speaker and co-chair together with George Higgs of the history-focused Gold Seminar.
In his final years, Uyterhoeven applied his professorial zeal to researching, understanding, and reflecting upon estate and end-of-life planning, writing papers and delivering speeches on these topics. “We can either make our own end-of-life decisions or avoid doing so by delegating them to our doctors or by letting a disease take over,” he wrote. “If quality of life is a critical determinant, it is important to make a long list of the kinds of activities that one treasures or that people want to be able to perform by themselves.”
In his retirement, in the company of his loving wife, Uyterhoeven continued to enjoy good food and wine, dance, ride his bike, and travel regularly to Europe. His survivors will miss his wise counsel, eloquent speeches, Dutch humor, generosity, and friendship.
In addition to his wife, Julie, Uyterhoeven is survived by four daughters, Monique Kusig, of Sunnyvale, Calif., Ani Sieler, of Seattle, Wash., Sonia Pieczara, of Hackensack, N.J., and Laura Moon, of Weston, Mass., all by his first wife, Sandra (Bunt) Uyterhoeven, of Cambridge, Mass.; his daughter, Erika Uyterhoeven (MBA 2019), of Cambridge, Mass.; five sons-in-law; and five grandchildren.
A celebration of Uyterhoeven’s life will be held in Vero Beach on Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 10:30 a.m., in the John’s Island Golf Club Ballroom.
A memorial service that will take place in the Class of 1959 Chapel at Harvard Business School is being planned.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to one of the following organizations: Indian River Symphonic Association (www.irsymphonic.org, P.O. Box 2801, Vero Beach, FL, 32961), Vero Beach Museum of Art (www.verobeachmuseum.org, 3001 Riverside Park Drive, Vero Beach, FL 32963), or Weston Forest and Trail Association (www.westonforesttrail.org).
