Obituary: Harry Brawner, global banker, traveler Obituary: Harry Brawner, global banker, traveler (July 27, 2005)

Alexander Harrrison (Harry) Brawner III, who opened branches in 54 countries for Bank of America International, died quietly June 27 after a long battle with cancer, at The Sequoias in Portola Valley. He was 82.

Mr. Brawner, an enthusiastic traveler, circled the world several times in pursuit of business and interests ranging from penguins to genealogy, Meanwhile, he and his family lived intermittently in Atherton, when not stationed in Hawaii, the Philippines, New York or Switzerland.

"He was known as a fair, thorough, reliable businessman who rose to the heights of finance," said his son, James Brawner of San Diego. "He was president of Bank of America International."

Harry Brawner was born in San Francisco and grew up mostly in Hillsborough. He was the first of four generations, starting with his father, to attend Menlo School. One of his three sons, and his grandson, attended, and he has been a staunch supporter.

Mr. Brawner's education at Princeton was interrupted by World War II, when he served in the Army.

By the time he graduated from Princeton in 1947, he had met and courted a distant cousin. Shortly after graduation, he married Alice Ann Lowry, who was also descended from the same Scottish-Irish family of potato farmers who emigrated across the ocean in the 1770s, just as a new republic was being established, according to Mr. Brawner's writings.

Mr. Brawner worked for W.P. Fuller & Co., the family-owned paint company, until it was sold in a hostile takeover in the early 1960s. After working in Hawaii, and building business around the Pacific, he recommended the formation of, and headed, a new International Division, which built joint ventures from the Caribbean to Pakistan, according to his 2001 biography, "Follow by Six Paces."

Following the sale of the paint company, Mr. Brawner joined the Bank of America, and built on his international experience to become president of Bank of America International. He retired from banking in 1982.

Throughout his life, from childhood, through his business years, and even more in retirement, Mr. Brawner was an inveterate and consummate traveler, according to the program for a memorial celebration held at The Sequoias on July 16.

Many of these travels he shared with his wife until she died in 1997. They tracked penguins around the Southern Hemisphere, and tracked ancestors in Scotland and Ireland back to 370 AD.

Just this last May, barely a month before he died, he cruised the Danube with his daughter, a computer teacher in Capetown, South Africa.

Mr. Brawner also devoted energy to causes he believed in, particularly education. Starting in 1968, he served on the Menlo School Board of Trustees and as its president in 1980. He was a leader in the drive for the bell tower at Christ Church in Portola Valley.

Mr. Brawner moved to The Sequoias retirement complex in 1999. He was president of the Residents' Council in 2003-04.

"Harry brought something very special to The Sequoias," said longtime resident Mary Ripley. "He knew how to involve people and use their skills. And he really listened."

His children remember visiting their grandfather, A.H. Brawner II, at his estate on Westridge Drive in Portola Valley. The most notable occasion was when their grandfather dressed up as Santa Claus and landed in the driveway by helicopter. Wonderful -- except the spinning rotors stirred up a gust of sand and gravel. And little Jim Brawner got something in his eye. "I was crying. I couldn't see anything," he still recalls.

Mr. Brawner is survived by a brother, Robert Brawner of Seattle; four children, William Brawner of Belchertown, Massachusetts, Brandon Brawner of Oakland, James Brawner of San Diego, and Caroline Brawner of Capetown, South Africa; two grandchildren, Jason and Kyrsten; and one great-grandchild, Aliann.

The family prefers donations to education or to a charity of the donor's choice.

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