WILLIAM F. GIEG

Born: May 17, 1940
Died: November 17, 2013

Bill was born in Sewickley, PA, the son of Charles Frederick Gieg '37 and Mildred Virginia Weitlich Gieg. Before arriving at Yale in the fall of '58, Bill had spent his first high school year at Western Reserve Academy, then Beaverton (Oregon) Union High School, and finished at New Trier in Illinois.

At Yale he majored in Mechanical Engineering, lived in Berkeley, rowed freshman and college crew and was in the Dramat for two years. His roommates were T.E.Ansnes, A.J.Garvey and J.E.Luck.

After graduation he worked for Electric Boat Company in Groton, designing water cooling systems for nuclear submarines. In 1964 he married Gretchen Tiffany who, along with his son David and his daughter Jennifer and three grandchildren, survives him.

Early on he decided on a career change and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1968, practicing law with the firm of McGuire, Woods and Battle in Richmond Virginia until his retirement in 2010, when he moved to Deltaville, Virginia on the shore of Chesapeake Bay.

Bill was a man of many roles including organic gardener, ham radio operator, navigation instructor for the US Power Squadron, Angel Flight test pilot and master diver. In retirement he moved from sailing to power boats and was a coxswain with the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary.

Kit Kincade knew Bill from first grade and wrote: "I remember more about Bill from our elementary-school days than from his WRA or Yale years. He lived across the street and a couple of houses down from Hudson Elementary School. His mother, Millie, was very funny, often the comedic lead in Hudson Players productions.

"Bill was a little taller and bigger than me... One day after school we ended up in a pummeling contest on the playground. You jumped on the pile and hollered your weight. Bill threw himself on top of me, shouting, "All 86." Age 12, maybe? Bigger than the others.

"His dad worked for a national company where moving up meant moving around. I can't recall when they left Hudson, and did not see Bill again until he came to WRA for his one year, and then showed up again at Yale where we both started in Directed Studies."

Bill's Yale roommate, Terry Ansnes, wrote: "Before Yale, Bill moved a few times related to his dad's work. He lived a year outside of Portland, Oregon, and we were pretty good friends during the second year at Beaverton High School. After he moved away, we did not keep touch, and it was a big surprise to us both when we discovered each other at Yale.

"During the last three years Bill, Jerry Garvey, Jay Luck and I were roommates in Berkeley. Bill was always an avid sailor and it was convenient to roommates that his family's boat was just down the road. We had good times together.

"Bill was an engineering student and went to work at Electric Boat after graduation. We lost touch, and I went off to law school and a law career on the West Coast. It came as a big surprise when I learned that Bill was practicing law in Richmond. During our years at Yale, it never occurred to me that we would end up in the same profession. His career must have been very successful because he was many years with a prominent firm.

"I heard that a highlight for Bill was his sailing across the Atlantic with a son."