August 7, 2008
Albuquerque Journal
Manager Greatly Expanded UNM Endowment (Obit)
By Lloyd Jojola, Journal Staff WriterGuided by Chuck Vickers, UNM's endowment portfolio expanded greatly, an outcome on par for the man who loved swinging a golf club, but even more so loved boosting the school and the state.
“He was one of these unsung heros,” said Phil Vickers, a brother who lives in Arizona. “He was one of these guys who never sought recognition. That wasn't in his makeup. He just did his job the best way.
“New Mexico has lost a hell of a supporter.”
Charles W. Vickers, the University of New Mexico's former endowment manager who was a fixture in the school's Development Office for years before retiring in 2000, died July 21 of cancer.
The Albuquerque resident was 56.
A celebration of life service will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. Saturday at the UNM South Golf Course Pavilion.
“He really put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into managing the (endowment) funds and seeing that the donors benefited from what they gave and the beneficiaries benefited,” said Dave Mc Kinney, UNM's former vice president for business and finance and UNM Foundation treasurer.
Born in Grand Junction, Colo., Vickers lived most of his life in Albuquerque, graduating from St. Pius X High School before heading to UNM.
One of six children in a big Catholic family, Vickers used a work-study program to pay for college and ended up in the school's development office, his brother said.
“He pursued his degree in business, which he got, and all the while stayed with the development office and began to get more and more involved in working his way up,” Phil Vickers said.
After becoming a permanent part of the office, Chuck Vickers headed the school's Annual Fund program and initiated UNM's first telemarketing efforts, according to a story that ran in the donor newsletter “Developments” at the time of Vickers' retirement.
“When the UNM Foundation was created in 1980, Chuck became the chief financial officer,” the story reads.
“He directed the Presidential Scholarship Golf Tournament and worked on both major gifts and planned giving.”
With Vickers' guidance, the story says, the UNM/UNM Foundation endowment portfolio jumped from $60 million in 1991 to more than $200 million by 2000.
“Chuck felt very strongly that we needed to do the best job we could with those funds — we owed it to the donors,” Mc Kinney recalled.
“One of the things he did was put together a formal management program for the assets of the (UNM Foundation), whether they're stocks or bonds or what. He worked with an investment committee that we formed with the foundation on hiring fund managers, evaluating their management and setting targets for the various aspects of the assets.”
Vickers felt strongly that donors and beneficiaries were owed feedback about the investments, Mc Kinney said.
Phil Vickers said his brother and Robert Lalicker, a former UNM director of development, helped start the Presidential Scholarship Program.
Vickers was a member of the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education and was a Lobo Club contributor, as well as a football and basketball season ticket holder.
The avid golfer was a ranger at UNM's North Golf Course after retiring and taught the sport to kids as a junior golf program volunteer.
Chuck Vickers had close friends, enjoyed his yearly trips camping and “hunting” — he prided himself on not firing his rifle in about 20 years.
And from its beautiful skies to the culture — come Christmastime, they were called farolitos, not luminarias, he corrected people — Chuck Vickers “was one of these people who absolutely loved the state of New Mexico,” his brother said.
“He would defend it till the cows came home. Anybody who didn't like it, then get the hell out.”
His survivors include his siblings: Dr. Lon S. Vickers and his wife, Marke of Marietta, Ohio, Ann Motte and her husband, John, of Perris, Calif., Philip A. Vickers of Scottsdale and Sedona, Ariz., John A. Vickers and his wife, Jannette of Vail, Colo., and Tricia Wallace and her husband, Lyle W. of Parker, Colo.