Deceased June 28, 2020

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In Memory

Richard Schotte died June 28, 2020 In Camden, Maine, after a courageous battle with cancer.

Richard grew up in Amherst. His father, Oscar Schotte, was a professor of biology at Amherst. Before coming to Amherst, Richard attended Deerfield Academy. At Amherst, where he was known as “Dick,” he majored in economics and was a member of Phi Gamma Chi. After Amherst, Richard received an M.A. in economics from Columbia University (1966). He spent a summer learning Arabic at Princeton University.

He started his career in the International Division at Manufacturers Hanover Trust Co. (NYC), followed by a decade working for Massachusetts Life Insurance Co. (Granby, Mass.). In 1978 he moved to Los Angeles where he was president of the Capital Group’s American High Income Trust (AHIT), a high-yield bond fund which financed many emerging growth companies. Richard possessed a clear vision of the role that the cellular, cable and satellite companies would come to play. He developed a strong reputation and served as mentor to many younger analysts at the Capital Group who profited from Richard’s analytic skills and disciplined investment approach.

While in California, Richard bought a ranch in Montana and became proficient in the art of riding cutting horses. His lifelong friendship with classmate Tom Turgeon ’64 drew him from the west coast to Maine. 

In Maine, he flourished. He met his wife, Mary Jane; helped design a beautiful house overlooking Penobscot Bay; and became a passionate sailor. He collaborated with a well-respected boatyard in the area to build four custom sailboats. Two were well over 70-feet long. He loved the analytic process of designing and building boats, just as he had loved the process of constructing bond portfolios in his earlier career. Captaining those boats, he won many local races and participated in the Newport-to-Bermuda race one year. Although retired, he remained active in corporate circles on the boards of Amplify, Tilson Technology, Cerahelix and Maine Capital Strategies.

Richard loved the sea and the Maine woods. He walked extensivel,y and locals in Camden knew when to catch him on his daily trip to the post office. He enjoyed good food, lively conversations with friends and travel. He was always quick to translate an idea into an action plan. He was discreet, thoughtful, humble and ever looking positively toward the future. He was a devoted husband to Mary Jane and kept close loving relationships with all members of his family. 

Fred Moon ’64

 

I have a few words to say about Richard Schotte. Or “Dick,” as he was called when I met him in the spring of 1963. I was a freshman, and he, a junior, at Amherst College. I was a theater guy, he, an economics guy. In the previous fall, I had met another student, Tom Turgeon ’64, who was also a theater guy. He lured me into joining the Phi Gam fraternity, and that’s where I met his best friend, Dick Schotte, who I better call Richard now or he’ll get annoyed.

They had both grown up together in Amherst and were what we called faculty brats. Tom’s father was a professor of French and Richard’s father, a professor of biology—Oscar Schotte, who immigrated from Minsk in the 1930s. I remember that Professor Schotte had a couple of refrigerators in his bio lab to keep his amphibian specimens, which was his field of study. On the bottom shelf in one refrigerator, he kept several bottles of chilled Dubonnet Red for when guests would arrive. I tried to be a frequent guest.

I didn’t take any courses from either professor but got to know them, their families and, of course, their sons. That was the start of the lifelong friendship among me, Tom and Richard. Tom became a theater professor, ending up for 32 years at Kenyon College, where he taught many a theater student, my eldest daughter among them. I always knew Tom would be a theater professor. In fact I believe Tom emerged from the womb already wearing a tweed jacket and unpressed khakis. I think Richard emerged wearing a suit. Do you find it curious that 10 days after Richard died, Brooks Brothers declared bankruptcy?

Richard graduated Amherst, and after getting his master’s at Columbia, joined MassMutual, rising to vice president. While at MassMutual, Richard lived in Granby, Mass., with two German shepherds and his wife, Cindy. My first wife, Betty, had introduced Richard to his first wife when Betty and Cindy attended Mt. Holyoke College. You see how well that turned out for both of us.  

In Granby I remember Richard had a phone number that was previously the number for the Springfield Massachusetts Drug Crisis Hotline. Richard would get calls at 2 in the morning and would have to talk down teenagers who were flipping out. Somehow Richard did not think this was his calling, so he persuaded the local phone company to change his number.

During this time I had followed Tom Turgeon ’64 to Yale Drama School and started to become interested in film. Richard told me to start a company, make a film with a certain Amherst professor about why river flooding was an important ecological process and a couple of more films about behavioral psychology with a professor at Mt. Holyoke. Richard loved to spur me on, organize me, push me into what he knew I could do.

After 10 years, Richard ventured to Los Angeles and helmed one of American Funds bond funds. He did quite well. Richard liked money, but he was not obsessed by it. He liked to play with it, developing a knack with money like playing his own Monopoly game. He had fun. He liked what money could do…what money could do for people. How businesses worked or could work better. How to make a difference using the game of finance. He continued to practice that here.

While in California, Richard bought a ranch in Montana and also learned to be proficient in the art of riding cutting horses. Can you imagine Richard galloping around in a corral, steering cattle one way and the other? Neither can I. But he did it.

While out west he would come back east to visit his parents and venture up to Friendship where Tom Turgeon’s family had a summer place facing west over Muscongus Bay. When Richard “retired,” Maine drew him back and he helped a lot of local companies, built a beautiful house which he helped design, fell in love with sailing and helped design some cute little sailboats for himself, two of which were more than 70 feet long, and he became a proficient sailor and winner of some local races. He also fell in love with Mary Jane, the best thing to happen to Richard. Ever. Even including sailing. Or money.

I was hoping to live long enough to retire to the coast of Maine and crack jokes and lobsters with Tom Turgeon ’64 and enjoy a few sails with Richard Schotte. But that was not to be. Tom died of ALS in 2013. And though I thought that of us three I’d be the first to go, I will be the last. I am sad I no longer share my life with Richard, but I am so grateful that Richard shared so much of his life with me.

I miss you already, kind sir. Godspeed, Richard. Godspeed.

John Huberth ’64